The South-South Predicament

Historically, most prominent channel of economic penetration of the third world has been through the regulation of aid and investment; it's purpose no greater than of a revolving credit and its fate almost always, swayed in the favour of the provider. On the eve of India's debut at expanding assistance to developing countries, the tenets of developmental politics as described under the aegis of the ‘South-South’ cooperation paradigm, certainly provide speculative hope, but not without cause for concern. The authors of this paper begin by investigating Aid and its effectiveness in Africa, followed by an analysis of the traditional aid-to-investment-to growth linkages. Following an investigation of the impact of economic relations on cultural capital to explore symbolic violence, this paper will finally question the idealistic assumptions surrounding South-South cooperation while in a larger context also questioning the discursive regime of Aid and Investment.