Rising Powers in African agriculture: Are China and Brazil bringing new paradigms to agricultural development cooperation?

China and Brazil are not only emerging as major new players in international development cooperation in Africa; along with other Rising Powers, they are also claiming to be working in a new way, characterised by solidarity, mutual learning and "win-win" exchanges rather than conditionality, control and one-way knowledge transfer. Some claim that this amounts to a "new paradigm", contrasted with the approaches followed over recent decades by the established donor countries (many of which are former colonial powers).

This study will examine these issues in the agricultural development cooperation sector, which is critically important for sustainable development and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa - as well as for the UK, which is both a major provider of aid to African agriculture (whether directly or through international organisations like the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) and a major consumer of African agricultural produce. In agriculture as in other sectors, the UK shares with the Rising Powers a perception that Africa is an important source of primary resources and growing markets, which means that understanding the changing landscape of agricultural development cooperation on the continent is important for the UK economically as well as foreign policy interests.

The project will be carried out through an innovative international partnership. This will connect researchers from institutions in the UK and a range of African countries, who are already linked through the well-established and influential IDS-led Future Agricultures Consortium, with colleagues from China and Brazil who are actively engaged in studying their countries' new development cooperation engagements.

The proposed research will begin with a mapping phase that will generate the first comprehensive geo-referenced database of Chinese and Brazilian agricultural development cooperation projects in Africa. This will be followed by in-depth case studies of a sample of these projects taking place in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The case studies will examine the ways in which experience and expertise from China and Brazil engage with the realities of African agriculture and the perspectives of African scientists and farmers. Comparative analysis across projects, countries and types of intervention will address the question of whether "new paradigms" of development cooperation are actually emerging, and assess their implications for the future of aid policy.

This in turn will contribute to an ongoing process of engagement with policy processes in Africa, Brazil, China and the UK, as well as in key international fora, including the discussions that will take place under the UK and Russian Presidencies of the G8 in 2013 and 2014 on the future of development beyond the expiry in 2015 of the Millennium Development Goals.

This project addresses issues raised under all the themes of the Rising Powers and Interdependent Futures Call.

The study will directly benefit researchers, practitioners and policymakers from the UK, China, Brazil and a range of African countries who are engaging with agricultural development cooperation. By facilitating an enhanced understanding of the processes in which they are involved at the project, national and international levels it will strengthen their work on supporting African agriculture, with positive impacts on food security and sustainable development in the continent.

Within Brazil and China the project will provide significant opportunities for influencing rapidly-evolving development cooperation strategies, and strengthen in-country research capacity to support these strategies, to the benefit of these countries and their African partners. In Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, it will strengthen the ability of African researchers and policymakers to negotiate with Chinese and Brazilian actors, increasing ownership and opportunities to align new initiatives more strongly with African realities and interests.

At the policy level, the research will contribute to improved dialogue among stakeholders from Africa, Brazil, China, the UK and other established donor countries, with benefits for the coordination and effectiveness of international development cooperation activities, and hence the value for money that they provide. The UK in particular will benefit from stronger relationships with Chinese and Brazilian institutions and from high-quality policy-relevant information to inform its engagements with the Rising Powers on the key issue of agricultural development in an interdependent world, as well as on the future of aid more broadly.

In addition to its contributions to broad academic and policy debates, the case study research process will engage with specific ongoing processes, whether at the global policy level, (e.g. negotiating the development cooperation agenda of the UK and Russian G8 Presidencies), South-South or Triangular Development Cooperation Initiatives (such as the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace) or individual country-level projects (such as Embrapa's planned evaluation of its Nacala Corridor project in Mozambique).

Key actors involved in several of these initiatives have already expressed strong interest in engaging with the research, and other similar opportunities will be identified as part of the Participatory Impact Pathways Assessment (PIPA) exercise to be carried out in Year 1.