The interest in the African Continent in the international community has grown significantly recently. During the past 10 years, African economies have grown at a much faster rate than before, and many countries of the world are now entering African countries hoping to pre-occupy profitable markets or increase trade volumes. Indeed, the fact that 7 of the world's 10 fastest growing economies by real GDP growth rate are African countries suggests that many African countries have great potential for future economic development. In this sense, this study looks closely into Brazil's foreign policy and its expansion strategy towards Africa, and identifies a number of practical implications for Korea. Especially, this study focuses on Brazil's relationship with PALOP, namely the group of Portuguese-speaking African countries - Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Sao Tome and Principe.
Both Brazil and PALOP were former colonies of the Portuguese Empire for more than several hundred years, and thus basically share the same language and culture. Based on these unique social-historical ties, Brazil has historically had a close relationship with PALOP, and greatly increased the level of development cooperation, especially since the Lula administration after the beginning of the second millennium. It warrants a closer look from both practical and academic perspective as Brazil's development cooperation with PALOP, often called "South-South cooperation," deviates significantly from "traditional" development cooperation as implemented by Western developed countries hitherto, and at the same time, has shown to have had a very positive impact. The Korean government recently recognized the strategic importance of Angola and Mozambique, as they are one of the most resource-rich countries in Africa. In this context, this study will discuss Brazil's development cooperation strategy with PALOP in detail, especially focusing on Angola and Mozambique, gauging pros and cons of building a partnership with Brazil from Korea's perspective.
In Chapter 2, the study looks closely at the historical connection between Brazil and PALOP, dividing it into 4 periods, 1) from the 15th to 19th century, 2) after the independence of Brazil in 1822 up to the early 1950s (the "cooling-down" period), 3) from 1960s to the early 1980s (the period of restoration), 4) from the mid of 1980s to Brazil's economic crisis in 1990s (the period of shrinking relations), and finally 5) from early 2000s to present (the period where relations were closer than ever).
During the first period, Brazil's relation with PALOP, especially with Angola, was seemingly very close. For example, such history as the transatlantic slave trade from PALOP to Brazil, frequent meetings of high officials between these two regions, the dispatch of the Brazilian army to Angola to fight against Dutch forces, and secret attempts by the Angolan anti-colonial resistance to incorporate Angola as one of the states of Brazil after the independence of Brazil clearly confirm it. However, during the second period, Brazil's interest in foreign policy was mainly concentrated on countries in Latin America, Europe, and the USA, and thus the relations between Brazil and PALOP became weak and tenuous. The fact that those of African descent in Brazil failed to consolidate their political power also accelerated the deterioration in the relationship. But again, during the third period, PALOP-Brazil relations were largely restored as Brazil began to pursue independent foreign policy stressing the importance of "South-South cooperation" with African countries. Also, the outbreak of the oil crisis forced Brazil to seek good relations with oil-rich African countries. Consequently, Brazil's exports to African countries rose by 129% and import by 300%. Brazilian banks and firms began to expand into Africa as well. During the fourth period, however, the relations stagnated again as Brazil experienced a severe economic crisis. But after year 2000, the Lula government again took the initiative in taking Brazil’s relations with PALOP to a whole new level.
Actively seeking independent foreign policy, the Lula government tried to improve relations with virtually all African countries, not just with PALOP. As a result, the number of Brazilian embassies, as well as diplomats in Africa, almost doubled since 2002. The president himself also frequently visited Africa, 34 times to 23 different countries. A variety of development cooperation programs were newly launched or expanded during his regime such as education programs PEC-G and PEC-PG for foreign undergraduate and graduate students respectively, in addition to aggressive expansion of credit line by BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) towards Africa; and humanitarian aid in the field of health, education, and agriculture. However, after Dilma's government came into power, Brazil has begun to experience a serious economic crisis, and thus the size of cooperation programs is likely to be reduced significantly. But during Dilma's regime, Brazil would expand its cooperation with African countries to include military cooperation ？ specifically the export of warplanes - and thus it is likely that Brazil's foreign policy towards Africa may remain close in near future.
In chapter 3, we further discuss in detail Brazil's expansion to PALOP - especially, in areas such as development cooperation, foreign direct investment, and bilateral trade - based on a variety of official statistical data. Overall, it is safe to argue that compared to other "giants" such as US and China, Brazil's presence in Africa is still relatively weak, at least in terms of various statistical figures. However, seeking a new approach with "South-South cooperation," Brazil's relations with African countries, especially with PALOP, still warrants an in-depth evaluation. Its characteristics can be summarized as follows: First, the absolute majority of Brazil's development cooperation in Africa seeks to transfer so-called "made-in-Brazil" social development programs, which had been successful in Brazil, to African countries under the label of "technical cooperation." Brazil, several decades ago, also experienced similar health and education problems, e.g., high prevalence of HIV/AIDS that African countries are currently facing, and it is thus highly likely that, if correctly implemented, Brazil may emerge as a better partner for many African countries than Western countries. Second, the number of triangular cooperation is surprisingly large. In fact, ABC, the Brazilian agency which roughly corresponds to KOICA in Korea, clearly articulates in its mission statements that Brazil actively seeks triangular cooperation opportunities, especially with Western developed countries. Third, Brazil's aid towards PALOP clearly aims to attain regional leadership within the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries). Fourth, Brazil's aid structure is extremely diversified and fragmented without any central coordinating agency. Though it is apparently Brazil's central governmental agency of international development cooperation, ABC has very limited power, and aid projects tend not to be properly monitored and evaluated.
Fifth, BNDES have played an important role in Brazil’s support for the development of many African countries. Sixth, with respect to some "major" development cooperation activities, especially in Mozambique, Brazil is aggressive in seeking commercial profits. And lastly, Brazilian multinational firms prefer a high level of localization in PALOP than any other foreign countries.
Furthermore, this study also compares Brazil's characteristics discussed above with other major foreign countries that are currently actively cooperating with PALOP. As a result, we could observe that Brazil behaves in a similar way as those countries in many aspects, but at the same time has some clearly distinctive features as well. First, concerning the first characteristic discussed above, namely exporting “made-in-Brazil” programs, it would be safe to argue that it is clearly one of the strongest competitive advantages Brazil has. Second, the fact that the number of triangular cooperation is exceptionally large can also be seen as one of the positive aspects of Brazil's cooperation strategy with African countries. It implicitly suggests that Brazil's "South-South cooperation", aside from the fact it is seeking a "new" way of cooperation, can basically be seen as being complementary to Western donors' aid programs. Third, the limits of Brazil's aid structure such as a lack of monitoring and evaluation sysms can be found in many other emerging donors, e.g., India and South Africa. Fourth, the most obvious and perhaps strongest competitive advantage Brazil has in PALOP against any other major country is that they share the same language and culture. Here, it is worth noting that in PALOP countries, the image of Brazil is relatively positive and its products are often seen as something "prestigious".
Consequently, we could draw the following implications for Korea from what has been discussed so far. First of all, Korea, also an emerging donor, is currently experiencing a high level of aid fragmentation just as Brazil does, although relatively less. We do not believe that it is simply negative as it perhaps seems, especially in the case of Brazil. Certainly, a severe fragmentation of aid structures can lead to various negative effects, diminishing overall aid effectiveness. On the other hand, aid fragmentation can actually have some positive effects as well, such as quicker response to actual needs in developing countries with possibly better decision-making. In Brazil's cooperation mechanism, we believe, the positive aspect of aid fragmentation is more predominant.
Second, the unique historical and cultural ties between Brazil and PALOP is clearly a strong competitive advantage that no other country can easily imitate. In this sense, building a partnership with Brazil clearly seems to be beneficial for Korea in building good relations with PALOP.
Also, since the year 2000, many emerging donors began to successfully increase their aid or engage in "South-South cooperation" with African countries. The total amount of aid from emerging donors are now significant and cannot be easily ignored. As more countries that were recipients of aid in the past are becoming donors, international aid is becoming more diversified than ever before. In this context, we strongly argue that Korea needs to invest more efforts toward maximizing its aid effectiveness through international cooperation with other traditional or emerging donors.
Third, Brazil, mainly because of the same language, prefers to hire locals than send expatriates when implementing projects for development cooperation, especially in PALOP. It is clearly opposite of what China usually does. We suggest that Korea also needs to increase the level of localization, show better understanding and greater acceptance of local partners and, if possible, active hire local employees. Moreover, as Brazilian aid agency ABC emphasizes, no-conditionality and mutual benefit from development cooperation is vital for long-term success. In this sense, it is interesting to see how the ProSAVANA project in Mozambique may develop in future.
After becoming a member of DAC recently, Korea is straining become a more respectable donor. In this context, a lot has been said and written to answer the following question: what is a "Korean" way of supporting development of Africa? We believe at least a part of the answer to the question above can be found in the case of Brazil.