Emerging Partners and Their Impact on African Development

Abstract

After a slump in attention in the 1990s, Africa is now back on the international agenda. An important reason for the renewed interest in the ‘troubled continent’ is that it is increasingly sought after as a partner to other developing regions, as it is a major source of raw materials and a potential growth market for goods produced in newly industrialising countries. The economic and political rise of China and India (dubbed ‘the Asian drivers’ of global change) in particular has contributed to resurgent Western attention in Africa’s natural resource wealth. Apart from China and India, other middle-income countries that have emphasised integration into the world economy as an important element in their own economic development strategies (South Africa, Brazil, Malaysia, or South Korea) are also contributing to changing the context in which African development takes place. In this chapter, these states are described as ‘non-DAC (Development Assistance Committee) donors’.¹ Despite the global economic downturn, these economies are likely to continue to be important drivers of global demand, and thereby global prices for commodities. However, this is only one dimension of how these actors are transforming the development landscape.