South-South Cooperation: The Role of Brazilian Investments in Mozambique’s Agricultural Transformation
Wheeler R. Winstead
Howard University
Traditional models of North-South development aid are giving way to new models of South-South cooperation, led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). This shift is due in part to the failure of North-South models to address severe poverty in developing countries.
Brazil’s position among the BRICS and the international community is noteworthy. According to the World Bank’s report, “The World Trade Organization ranks Brazil as the third-largest food exporter.” Regionally, Brazil accounts for over 50 percent of South America’s wealth, population, territory and military budget. This makes Brazil more relatively powerful in South America than China and India are in their regions.
Brazil’s interest and investment in Africa has also dramatically increased. Former President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva of Brazil has led Brazil back to Africa. By illustration, he traveled to the continent eight times, visited twenty African countries and commented that Brazil owes a historical debt to Africa.
Brazil’s influence in Africa is now being seen in the new partnership and development projects being pursued in Southern Africa, specifically Angola and Mozambique. Brazil is now heavily investing in Mozambique’s agriculture. The literature suggests that this engagement could be more beneficial to Africa and particularly Mozambique, than former North-South development assistance. Although research is emerging on the general subject of South-South cooperation, not much exists on the subject of the Brazil-Africa relationship and the impact and benefits of this relationship to Southern African countries.
My paper address the nature, form, impact and potential of South-South cooperation as reflected in Brazil’s role in Mozambique’s agricultural transformation. It is primarily an examination of the relationship between the Mozambican Institute of Agricultural Research and its Brazilian counterpart, Embrapa, in their cooperative agreement to transfer knowledge, technology and skills.
I will discuss the issues of Brazil’s involvement with Mozambique’s agricultural transformation through in-depth perceptual interviews of knowledgeable and informed individuals in Brazil and Mozambique. The findings are analyzed through the conceptual framework of South-South cooperation using the case study method of inquiry.
I argue that there is a high degree of ambiguity and negativity around Brazil and its role in its agricultural cooperative projects; cooperative rhetoric is not the same as reality and that the conditions were not present for agricultural transformation
In conclusion, this project, by closing examining the Brazil Mozambique agricultural cooperative relationship, presents South-South cooperation in a more realistic light, while highlighting for researchers and policymakers, the critical, often neglected, factors necessary for successful cooperative projects.
