A decade ago, a group of us published a Special Issue of the journal World Development discussing the results of collaborative research undertaken through the ESRC-funded ‘China and Brazil in African Agriculture’ project. The project looked at the imprint of Chinese and Brazilian agriculture focused projects, alongside state-business partnerships, as well as other relationships, including informal migration, technology transfer, training etc.. We worked across Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe with a great team.
What has happened since? I invited authors of the papers from 2016 to reflect on what has changed. The short answer is, a lot. But there are some interesting dynamics. A series of eight blogs were recently posted on the IDS website, and I including the links below. They are worth a read, as these wider geopolitical relations shape what is possible in places like Zimbabwe. China of course dominates but Brazilian tractors have also been a feature (with a rather sorry example from our study area in Mvurwi in the lead image).
The relentless rise of China means that the portfolio of Chinese investments in Africa has expanded. The agricultural technology exchanges, education/training efforts and informal Chinese migration to Africa that we focused on in the Special Issue articles have continued, as Henry Tugendhat and Dawit Alemu discuss for Chinese sponsored agriculture training. In addition, new forms of state-business relationship and commercial partnership are emerging, as discussed by Jing Gu and Zhang Chuanhong. Chinese research partnerships have shifted too, as China Agriculture University colleagues, Xiuli Xu and Tang Lixia, discuss in new blogs.
Brazil has changed too over this period and so the relationships with Africa. Our project took place following Lula’s second presidential term, with much optimism about bi- and trilateral collaboration. This included the More Food International initiative, discussed in a 2016 article. This was reversed dramatically with the change in political leadership after 2019, and the Bolsonaro administration abandoned most of these efforts. Attempts to revive Brazil-Africa relations in Lula’s third term have been constrained by lack of funding, but also a switch in focus with new technological partnerships emerging with China, rather than simply emphasising the export of Brazilian equipment to Africa, as Lidia Cabral and Arilson Favareto discuss.
Attempts to attract Brazilian agribusiness to Africa, on the assumption that Brazilian agronomic and business expertise could easily be transferred along similar latitudes, included the notorious ProSAVANA project in Mozambique. Even though the ProSAVANA project ‘failed’ its continued legacies persist in an afterlife of small projects influencing the performance of development along the whole Nacala corridor, as described by Euclides Gonçalves and Alex Shankland in a new blog.
Over the last decade, then, the once much-hyped ‘South-South’ cooperation (with the prospect of ‘trilateral’ linkages with Western aid donors, such as the UK or Japan) described by Kojo Amanor and Sergio Chichava in their 2016 article has changed significantly. A new geopolitics and massively increased economic power mean that China is very much centre stage in relationships with Africa, while Brazil now takes more of a backseat, despite its aspirations. Western donors have, at the same time, retreated with declining commitments to aid funding. Although much has changed, key aspects of the political dynamics and uneven power relations remain the same, making South-South cooperation in a new geopolitical era never completely mutual and always contested.
Here are the new blogs. Do have a look!
From seeds to garden: Understanding South-South cooperation – Institute of Development Studies
Changes in China’s training courses for African officials – Institute of Development Studies
Link to the full series: Understanding China and Brazil’s changing roles in Africa – Institute of Development Studies
This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland