The price of participation in BRICS?

The United Kingdom's International Development Secretary Justine Greening announced that the UK's bilateral development assistance program will come to an end in 2015. This announcement came as quite a surprise to a lot of people in the international development community, and it seems also to the government of South Africa. The official diplomatic reaction from South Africa showed that they were seriously displeased.

So what was the reason for this displeasure?

First of all, what was it that the Rt Hon Justine Greening announced? She said that the bilateral aid program will be ended, but that existing programs would be gradually brought to an end with expected wrap-up by 2015. She also mentioned that the current program includes 19million Pounds/year, which is less than half of the 40million from ten years ago. The current program includes working alongside SARS to strengthen other tax services in Southern Africa, helping the SA Dept of Health to share knowledge of medicines to other SADC countries, and helping with the establishment of the South African Development Partners Agency (an agency helping RSA to share experiences in tackling poverty since the end of Apartheid with other African countries). The Rt Hon Ms Greening's announcement also indicated that this wasn't an end to their participation in South Africa's development agenda - she also said that the UK would now focus on technical assistance and skills transfer in the areas of health and economic growth, as well as boosting South Africa's role as a development partner in Africa. (read the official press release here)

And why was South Africa's government particularly unhappy about the announcement? First of all, the announcement was made at a conference of business leaders and African ministers in London. The South African government felt that this was an inappropriate time and place for such an announcement, and I suspect would have been somewhat embarrassed about finding out about it through the media and perhaps frantic phone calls from South Africans attending the conference, rather than through official diplomatic channels. South Africa's official statement was quite strong in voicing displeasure about the decision, and particularly with the manner in which it was communicated. Spokesperson Clayson Monyela said: "This is such a major decision with far reaching implications on the projects that are currently running and it is tantamount to redefining our relationship." The South Africans seemed particularly disappointed that Greening didn't wait until later this year to discuss it at a planned Bilateral SA/UK Strategy Forum. They made it very clear that they plan to make this a topic of discussion at that meeting. (read South Africa's official statement here)

The majority of large organizations such as Oxfam and ActionAid that put out an official response were either guarded or directly critical of DFID's move in cutting off aid to South Africa. Although the announcement was sudden and made in an unexpected way, it should also not have come as a total surprise. First of all, the UK has been reducing its bilateral aid to South Africa steadily for more than a decade. Second, other members of the BRICS grouping have been cut off in recent years including Russia and China, and a similar announcement about support for India was made last year. At Fourth Watch, we speculate on whether there is a link between this and South Africa's participation in BRICS. Could this be the price of participation in the BRICS grouping of rapidly growing economies? South Africa has been far from quiet about its participation, and made much of hosting the group in Durban recently. Perhaps all this talk about South Africa's economic growth also got the attention of those who have been asked to make cuts to the UK's bilateral aid programs. Even if there is no cause/effect relationship, at the minimum the South African government has provided the UK with a handy rationale for cutting the program.

Another observation that doesn't seem to have been picked up on by many is that these program cuts will hurt other African countries as much or more than South Africa. The entire program in its current format is about helping leverage successes in South Africa into other African countries. It's also surprising to us that no comments seem to have been made about the unilateral UK declaration on what direction aid will go in the future - there was clearly no dialogue with South Africa on what assistance is needed or wanted, and the wording of the UK's announcement carries the underlying assumption that the UK has superior knowledge on how to manage an economy - which seems slightly ironic given the two countries' recent relative economic performance.

All that said, we don't disagree with the direction that the UK is going with the program. The announced new focus does seem like a very sensible one from the outside, and one that will help development of the region as a whole. It's just unfortunate that they chose to announce it in such a unilateral and abrupt manner.