Indiens Entwicklungszusammenarbeit - Chancen und Herausforderungen für die internationale Entwicklungszusammenarbeit

Projektbeschreibung

Along with China and other "rising powers", India is one of the countries emerging in increasing numbers as global actors and having an influence on the global agenda. India’s growing importance is particularly evident from its high economic growth rates, the increasing weight it carries in international trade, the upturn in its direct investment in developing countries and the development cooperation activities integrated in those countries.

Like the international community, India endorses the global development agenda and, consequently, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The practice in the OECD countries’ development cooperation of keeping ODA apart from other foreign and trade policies, with separate data and statistics, tends not to be common among the rising powers. For India and most other rising powers cooperation with other developing counties is, in fact, primarily guided by the principle of mutual benefit and forms part, by and large, of their own foreign, trade and security policy objectives.

Equally characteristic of India’s development cooperation is adherence to the Bandung Principles and especially the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of development partners. In adopting this approach, India and many other (re-)emerging donors contrast starkly with the OECD/DAC countries, which, to ensure aid effectiveness, attach various conditions to the provision of ODA flows, such as good governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights.

The fact that India is now straddling the line between ODA recipients and emerging actors in international development cooperation is an indication that an in-depth analysis of India’s activities is urgently needed for both German and international development cooperation.
The analysis in this study will look into the following aspects:

• Experience/foundations of Indian development cooperation
• India’s role in ensuring regional and cross-regional economic integration
• India’s assistance to Africa’s development.

With the aid of the analysis of India’s extensive experience of cooperation with developing countries, the historical background/motivation, instruments/organization, geographical alignment and focal sectors will be appraised and the lessons learned will be explained. India’s approach to the Paris Declaration, which it endorses as an ODA recipient, but does not yet apply as a guide for its own development cooperation, would also be commented upon. It will be particularly important for the future of international development cooperation to determine India’s prospective position on the principle of non-interference and its viewpoint towards the OECD countries’ policy of conditionality (especially with regard to good governance and human rights).

It would be analyzed whether India’s cooperation with developing countries is geared only towards development cooperation, or includes other areas as well.
In view of the fact that Indian cooperation with developing countries is largely focused on neighbouring countries (especially Nepal and Bhutan) and economic integration in this region is being further reinforced by the recently signed trade and investment agreement SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Agreement), India’s role in the regional integration process needs to be analyzed. On the basis of current data on Indian development cooperation and recent trade and investment flows to developing countries it will also be considered how far they contribute to the economic growth of these countries.

However, recent studies of development cooperation with Africa show, for example, the form that partial problem-solving approaches might take as a result of development policy activities, especially in the areas of capacity-building and business-to-business cooperation to the benefit of international value added chains.
By focusing particularly on development cooperation with Africa, the study takes up one of the main topics of the Heiligendamm process (Joint Statement by the German G8 Presidency and the Heads of State and/or Government of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa on the occasion of the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, 8 June 2007).

With the help of these questions and the appraisal and evaluation of Indian data/analyses and of other internationally available studies, the aim is to make a comprehensive study of Indian development cooperation and to indicate emerging trends. This will enable common features and/or differences in the development objectives of the various actors (e.g. - India, OECD countries, other developing countries) to be understood. Opportunities and conditions for cooperative approaches adopted by Germany and other European countries in their development cooperation would also be assessed. In general, then, the study will help to clarify what influence India will have on the relevant global governance regimes (development cooperation, international trade and investments).

Publikationen

• India's development cooperation - opportunities and challenges for international development cooperation
  Katti, Vijaya / Tatjana Chahoud / Atul Kaushik(2009)
  Briefing Paper 3/2009