South-South Cooperation in aid, trade and FDI?

Over the last decade both trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) from emerging economies to Africa has increased substantially.  These new economic relationships present many opportunities for African countries, but can also be seen to challenge existing relationships with traditional OECD partners.

In this Blog "A closer look at the economic engagement footprint of rising powers in Africa", Musab Younis, editor of the Eldis Rising Powers Resource Guide, writes for the Globalisation Team at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK. Here he argues that whilst there have been major increases in South-South trade, and the larger countries of the South (Brazil, China, India) have expanded their development cooperation programmes in poorer countries, until recently there have been few studies that have actually looked closely at these evolving patterns.

This makes a new report, "The Economic Engagement Footprint of Rising Powers in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Analysis of Trade, Foreign Direct Investment and Aid Flows" from the IDS Rising Powers in International Development programme, all the more pertinent. Its author, Xavier Cirera, asks whether the activities of the rising powers in Africa in fact really differ much in objectives from the trade and aid agendas of OECD countries? 

See Musab's Blog for an analyses of this report and other new commentary on this area.