China's 'misunderstood' aid approach to Africa

In recent times, China’s unique approach to providing official development assistance — particularly in Africa — has ”provoked strong reactions” from the international aid community. Despite the countless debates, Chinese aid to Africa remains poorly understood and, to an extent, misunderstood. Although Beijing is generally regarded as Africa’s largest development partner, details of its ODA are sorely lacking, prompting calls for aid transparency and accountability. This (deliberate) lack of transparency from the Chinese government regarding its aid portfolio in Africa is precisely what has led to misconceptions, according to an expert from a development research and innovation institution. “[Chinese aid has a] growing presence in Africa and South Asia,” Rebecca Latourell, Aid Data’s policy outreach specialist, told Devex. China’s development portfolio is one of the tools it has used to deepen these relationships abroad, but since the government does not publish “comprehensive or detailed data about its overseas development finance activities,” there are many misconceptions about the “nature, distribution and impact of Chinese grants, loans, technical assistance programs, debt relief schemes, export credits and state-sponsored investment activities.” Aid Data, along with the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Center for Global Development, has been attempting to bridge this information gap. It launched an online platform to track Chinese aid to Africa in May last year and recently released an updated version of the tool. Their data shows that Chinese-funded projects and pledges to Africa reached 1,949 from 2000 to 2012, with financial commitments amounting to almost $85 billion. Of the total commitments, 28.5 percent are considered ODA. Project completion rate, on the other hand, is at 68 percent. Devex previously reported that despite a general presumption that China’s aid to Africa focuses only on strategic trade partnerships, particularly in the mining and energy sectors, government and civil society, health, and education are actually the top three recipients, based on the information provided by Aid Data. Latourell said the disparity between perceived and actual aid recipient sectors is due to the inability of the international development community to impose standardized reporting systems on aid that can cope with the changing global development landscape. “Global reporting systems have not kept pace with the rapidly changing global development finance landscape and China’s accelerating economic engagement in Africa is one of the most important geopolitical developments of the decade,” she explained. READ: Is CSR the missing ingredient in the China-Africa relationship? Misconceptions, criticisms The global development community has two general misconceptions about Chinese aid: that it is the only opaque donor and its assistance to Africa is not working well. Yan Wang, a professor at George Washington University, noted that questions about the effectiveness of Chinese aid are, at times, biased against the country. “The record of Western donors in Africa is [also] not so good,” the academic told Devex. “The North also needs to learn from the South.” In a recent paper, Wang and former World Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Justin Lin argued that the way experts compare and analyze Chinese aid contribute to misconceptions. “Many analysts have tried to compare the amount of ODA between China and established donors such as the [United States] without considering the huge differences in income per capita, which is rather misleading,” the two experts explained. Even Aid Data’s report was not spared from criticism. Deborah Brautigam, a professor of international development at Johns Hopkins University and author of the 2011 book “The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa,” said the group’s methodology — which included compiling data from media reports — was ”dicey.” Aid Data acknowledged and defended this limitation, with Latourell adding that the aim is to “identify all possible information repositories from which to extract data.” “Aid Data’s … methodology draws on data from a wide variety of sources — including government data and documentation, academic articles, media and NGO reports — and synthesizes this information into individual project entries,” she explained. Moving forward So what’s the real significance of transparency and accountability in international development? For Latourell, it is an absolutely vital part of any aid strategy as the world moves forward. “There are good reasons to believe that greater transparency of aid flows can facilitate evidence-based decision-making and improve development outcomes,” she explained. Latourell noted the effects of the lack of transparency and accountability in international aid include: 1. Difficulty in effectively targeting, coordinating and evaluating aid. 2. Low chances of improving development programs as lack of monitoring reduces the chances of knowing where projects have succeeded or failed. 3. Decreased community engagement and public checks and balances of the projects, while also dispelling the possibility of crowdsourcing information about the status and performance of development programs from local stakeholders. “[Shedding light] on underreported financial flows are therefore useful to the extent that they help finance and planning ministry officials more effectively monitor and coordinate different sources of aid and the government’s own spending,” Latourell concluded. Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day. See more: - Unexpected patterns revealed on Chinese aid to Africa - Why we need better data on Chinese aid to Africa - Western donors embrace China for African development - China moves to enhance aid transparency