Brazil as a new international cooperation actor in sub-Saharan Africa: Biofuels at the crossroads between sustainable development and natural resource exploitation

Over the last decade, emerging economic powers have become increasingly influential actors in the formerly closed circle of donor countries. In the frame of south-south cooperation initiatives, large economies in the global south are working with less advanced developing countries. While a significant literature on China's role regarding mining and oil and gas exploration in Africa has developed, an analysis of the new dynamics of South-South cooperation and its effect on the political economy and sustainability of rural development and energy diversification in African countries is largely absent. As an effort to start filling this gap, we analyze the opportunities and frictions introduced by Brazilian actors in the biofuel sector in a set of sub-Saharan African countries. By assessing the political, technical and economic dimensions present in Brazil's south-south cooperation strategy for this region, we find that the arrival of Brazilian biofuel actors to Africa is leading to deep asymmetries between powerful and less preeminent actors, undermining the overall sustainability of the offered development model.