Development in the Atlantic: Between cooperation and competition

Scientific Paper  nº.11

This paper offers an analysis of the changing nature of development cooperation and its potential for innovation in the Atlantic sphere, particularly under the consideration of a stronger and more assertive role of southern actors. Development cooperation is indicative of broader shifts in political, economic, and cultural clout and key elements of the global aid architecture are
adapting a new reality. In light of South-South Cooperation’s emergence as an alternative to traditional aid, the analysis of cooperation in the Atlantic Basin points to an increasingly diverse global South. The diversity, in turn could position the Atlantic as a laboratory for innovative approaches to development cooperation. In the foreseeable future, interaction among Atlantic development partners, whether through cooperation, coordination, or competition, is unlikely to be crystalized into a new institutional set-up but will rather become the sum of dynamic and flexible arrangements reflecting the diversity of actors, interests, and strategies.