Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the South-South approach to development cooperation by analysing distinctive features of Brazil’s development assistance in Africa. Comparative advantages of Brazilian ideas and projects will be highlighted to verify how Brazil could contribute to the debate on aid effectiveness.

Paper long abstract:

Since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's presidencies (2003-2010) Brazil took a strong South-South orientation and deepened ties with African countries. A crucial part of the country's engagement in Africa was development cooperation. In his official speeches delivered on the occasions of his numerous visits to the continent, president Lula mentioned that the way cooperation with Africa is being shaped needs to change. To that end he started to promote the concept of solidarity diplomacy as a guiding principle of Brazil's activities within the South-South dialogue. The paper aims at analysing Brazil's input into the present debate on the existing development cooperation architecture. If claims of a cacophony of new voices (Brainard and Chollet 2007) seem valid to describe the complex reality of development cooperation in the 21st century, with Central and Eastern European and southern countries as new participants adding ideas and solutions to the debate on aid effectiveness, discerning unique qualities amidst new donors' practices could enrich the decades-long discussion on aid architecture improvement. Highlighting Brazil's strengths as an emerging donor, as well as innovative elements in their aid assistance, the article will suggest that since 2003 Brazil has been creating a development model that can contribute to global aid management. It does so by reconstructing roles ascribed to participants of the aid dialogue (donors, recipients) and focusing on delivering technical expertise. To complete the analysis, main controversies related to emerging donors' activities in Africa will be examined in order to verify possible challenges Brazil's development cooperation may be facing.