摘要

The emergence of what some scholars have defined as a new form of development assistance in the global South has generated significant academic interest over the course of the past 2 decades (Manning, 2006; Gray & Gills, 2016; Jing, Mendez, and Zheng, 2019). Closely, but not exclusively, associated with the establishment of the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) partnership, the positions on southern assistance advanced in the literature are often diametrically opposed. On the one hand, there are those who welcome the advent of BRICS as a counter‐hegemonic initiative intended to break the geopolitical dominance of the global North and to establish in its place a more egalitarian and multi‐polar world order. In this context, the forms of development assistance extended by the BRICS states and other new donors are seen to differ from the traditional forms of aid1 dispensed by countries operating under the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) both in their objectives and scope. This is evident in their preference to be labelled development partners rather than donors and in the fact that few if any conditionalities are attached to the assistance which they provide. Further distinguishing the southern model from that of the DAC is the fact that it is seen to combine aid with trade and investment in recipient countries in ways hitherto unknown in the realm of development assistance.

On the other hand, an alternative literature posits that although the forms of assistance dispensed by the BRICS states do, indeed, differ from more traditional forms of aid, they are no less hegemonic in their ambition, and they are ushering in forms of trade and resource extraction that are as exploitative as those which they ostensibly seek to replace (Bond, 2016). Suggestive as these opposing debates might be, however, they are frequently unsubstantiated empirically, and the positions advanced are often as much ideological as theoretical in nature. Little attention, in particular, has been focused on the dynamics of the aid systems that have been adopted by the new donors, the extent to which their design is shaped by endogenous and exogenous factors, and the influence that this might have on the orientation and implementation of their assistance programmes.

The articles in this special edition are intended to extend the debate on the development assistance agenda in the BRICS countries, in the extent to which it may be defined as such, though a more nuanced examination of the governance systems that shape their aid policies, the design of their funding institutions, and the modalities of their development assistance. They also assess the degree to which the new forms of aid do really differ from conventional models of development assistance in practice. The articles included can loosely be divided into two groups: the first examines the trajectory of development assistance provided by individual BRICS states and the governance systems that have emerged within them over time, whereas the second assesses the broad design of donor aid amongst states in the South and the extent to which this might be construed as a distinctive model.

引用

Tapscott, C., Jing, Y. and Puppim de Oliveira, J. A. (2019). BRICS and international development assistance Towards divergence or convergence in development assistance amongst North and South donors?. Public Administration and Development, 39(4-5), 167-173.