The European Union, Africa and new donors
China is currently the most important provider of aid flows to Africa, with 76% of all the ODA-like support coming from emerging donors, followed by India and Kuwait with each around 6%. However all the estimations are based on the limited public information available on these countries’ activities. All donors analysed in this report have been active for decades, with different intensity and geographical focus. China is the only country that supports most of the African countries, the other countries – Brazil, India, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE mostly focus on limited number of countries. Priority sectors include transport and power generation, although the accountability and transparency is hampered by the fact that only Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE comply with the guidelines to varying degrees. The countries also use different channels and institutional frameworks to conduct their activities in Africa – aid agencies, export-import banks, development funds and different ministries. But also a lot of the funds, especially in the infrastructure sector, come through the private sector.
Impact of emerging donors and recommendations for the EU positioning
The emerging donors’ involvement has its advantages and disadvantages. They don’t have any colonial experience on the continent and can offer knowledge and lessons from their own recent positive economic development. Furthermore there are close cultural links and implementation costs are lower. There are also potential disadvantages. The emerging donors do not link their support to stable institutions and democratic reforms, this sometimes causes instability. Moreover the practice of granting concessional loans erodes the debt stability on the continent. “Aid” from emerging donors is also often following the economic self-interest of the donors and is often not linked directly to international commitments such as the MDGs or SDGs.
In order to make the aid to Africa more effective, EU and other traditional donors, should position themselves better engaging with emerging donors. New donor countries will profit from the experience of traditional countries, especially from their experience in supporting the African countries to manage the different sources of financing. Also the established donors need to work jointly with the emerging donors to further promote private sector involvement in Africa, since financing from the private sector will remain of high importance in the process of SDGs implementation.