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Division of labour among European donors: allotting the pie or committing to effectiveness?

15/05/2007 By Nils-Sjard Schulz

The debate on the division of labour among development assistance donors has intensified recently with the European Commission’s proposal of a Code of Conduct.

However, there are still serious doubts about its capacity to bring about the desired effects, especially with regards to improving aid effectiveness. One of the main obstacles is a naïve and un-strategic view of division of labour, which does not take into account donor self-interest, or the power relationship between donor and partner countries, nor the influence of political aspects on development cooperation.

It is clear that the international aid system must have a more self-critical approach towards division of labour, in order to avoid degenerating into a re-edition of colonial partition of poor countries among European donors.

For a specific analysis on the division of labour in Spain, see by the same author: Hacia una apuesta efectiva por la división del trabajo: La Cooperación Española en su contexto europeo, OPEX Memorandum (Septembre 2007)

(Photo by Kim Carter)

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Projects

Division of labour in development aid

Keywords

Aid effectiveness Division of labour Donors European Union

Bio author: Nils-Sjard Schulz

He holds a Masters Degree in Social Sciences from the Humboldt University in Berlin and a specialization in International Relations at the Complutense University Madrid. Complementing his research on aid effectiveness, he works as an independent consultant. In 2008, he collaborated with the Development Assistance Committee in the evaluation of the Paris Declaration (thematic study on aid effectiveness and development effectiveness), the 2008 Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration and the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.