Donorship in a State of Flux

Abstract

The standards and norms governing the provision of development cooperation are important to investigate, as they define and communicate the problem of development, condition the way states negotiate their role and identity within the international community, and justify specific kinds of donor actions. Such standards and norms are currently in a state of flux. The principles of ‘donorship’ associated with the North-centric, State-officiated practice of charitable giving to needy countries are shifting ground. ‘Donorship norms’ inform the act of providing assistance overseas as well as associated practices related to being a ‘good donor’. A major challenge to these norms is the institutionalisation of South-South cooperation, which rejects donorship as a paternalistic practice, preferring instead the normative framework of ‘partnership’. Increasingly, however, Southern ‘partnership norms’ include retaining the formal bureaucratic apparatus and instruments of an assistance provider, meanwhile rejecting Northern characterisations of good donorship. South-South cooperation embraces a set of norms anchored in non-hierarchical relations based on reciprocity and a shared historical experience from which their development expertise derives. These norms increasingly inform the meaning and measurement of good partnership. As the principles underpinning good donorship and good partnership intermingle, Northern and Southern actors appear to be drawing on both sets of norms: both North and South widely accept the value of professionalising development cooperation, and they borrow selectively from donorship and partnership alike.

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