In Search of a New Paradigm of International Development Co-operation
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Development. Copyright © 1999 The Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (199909) 42:3; 22–24; 009791.
Thematic Section
In Search of a New Paradigm of International Development Co-operation INGE KAUL1
ABSTRACT Inge Kaul argues that international development cooperation (IDC) is increasingly going beyond aid and national policy objectives to ensuring global balances and creating and maintaining global infrastructure. She argues that, as a result, the international community lacks a clear, integrated vision of, and rationale for, IDC. Kaul raises the question of whether – and to what extent – the concept of global public goods could fill this void.
International development co-operation: the first generation (1947–late 1970s) After the Second World War, the Marshall plan was established as the first official development assistance programme for European reconstruction. With this Plan, US policy-makers hoped to achieve two important foreign policy objectives: to win the western European countries as allies and to re-create markets for US exports. The rationale for official development assistance converged on strengthening relations with political allies and securing commercial ties. But some countries, notably the Nordic ones, also pursued important moral and ethical concerns. The stated purpose of official development assistance was to assist poor countries in achieving their national objectives. Until the 1980s, policy-making and priority-setting sovereignty of the recipient developing countries were stressed, as well as the strong inter-governmental component of aid. Global development was seen as the sum total of the progress accomplished by individual countries, and national-level development in the South was frequently perceived as the challenge of ‘catching up’ with industrial countries. For the US, the Marshall Plan was instrumental in producing what might be called a ‘private–public’ good. Within the US, the conflict prevention and strategic advantages made possible by the Plan were a public good for all US citizens to benefit from. From the international viewpoint, the US was securing its own ‘private’ interests through the Plan. The recipient countries also benefited from substantial externalities.
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Kaul: International Development Co-operation Similarly, official development assistance consisted of a series of such bargains. Most official development assistance – typically up to 75 percent – was spent through bilateral programmes, a oneto-one relation between a donor country and a set of its preferred developing countries. Since most donor countries were also members of either the East or the West, they also engaged in a number of joint, co-ordinated activities in order to produce certain aid-related club goods – the advancement of the countries situated in their zones of interest. Examples are western donor co-ordination through the Development Assistance Committ
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