Book Review: Emma Mawdsley, From Recipients to Donors: Emerging Powers and the Changing Development Landscape

Published date01 January 2016
Date01 January 2016
DOI10.1177/0020881717726400
Subject MatterBook Reviews
82 Book Reviews
Emma Mawdsley, From Recipients to Donors: Emerging Powers and the
Changing Development Landscape (London and New York, NY: Zed
Books, 2012), 270 pp. £70 (Library edition), £20.99 (Paperback).
DOI: 10.1177/0020881717726400
In the last couple of decades, the global development architecture—defined
largely by the by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and institutions
like the World Bank—has dominated discourse on foreign aid. With the emer-
gence of other providers such as China, Gulf States, India, Russia, Turkey, Brazil,
South Africa, etc., this discourse is being challenged somewhat. Emma Mawdsley
has tried to capture this very phenomenon.
The author rightly argues that ‘it is increasingly obvious that the (Western-
dominated) “international” development community …can no longer neglect the
large number of (re-)emerging donors and development partners’ (p. 2). In the
beginning itself, she has made it clear that the term ‘emerging donors’ is much
bigger concept than that of ‘emerging markets’ or ‘emerging powers’. It covers
much of Asia, Africa, Latin America as well as Central and Eastern Europe.
Similarly, she explains how terms such as new, emerging, post-colonial, etc. are
not fully appropriate. Even terms like ‘non-DAC donors’, though technically
accurate, may not capture the full story as ‘it is a residual category which defines
these countries by what they are not’ (p. 6) rather than what they are. Further,
some of the donors like Saudi Arabia may be comfortable to be labelled as a
‘donor’; others like India strongly reject it and would rather like to be called as
‘development cooperation partner’.
The author suggests that although China is an important development partner
from the South, we need to go beyond China to fully understand the subject.
Secondly, the symbolic claims of alternative partnerships have a certain history as
well as profound impact on the development imaginaries of diverse range of
emerging donors. Third, similar to the evaluation of the Western aid, development
activities from the South also need to be assessed critically.
The book first looks at the changing global economic and political equations
resulting from the rise of ‘emerging powers’. After summarizing major international
relations theories concerning aid, the author tries to contextualize it in the wider
rise of the emerging powers as well as and shifts within ‘mainstream’ foreign aid.
Further, the book describes great variations within these countries, which are
structured in different contexts. These include socialism(s), the Non-Aligned
Movement, the United Nations South–South Cooperation initiatives, the oil price
rise of the 1970s and the European Union expansion. Issues concerning defini-
tions, measurements of aid and evaluation as confronted by these nations are also
dealt in a separate chapter. A full description of modes of assistance in terms of
loans, grants, technical assistance, debt relief, etc. is provided in a separate chapter.
The last few chapters evaluate claims concerning mutual benefit, respect for sov-
ereignty and solidarity as well as tensions and shifts within global aid architecture
resulting from the activities of emerging development actors.

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