The China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) was established in March 2018 and, since then, it has been closely monitored by international experts and development consultants regarding its efforts to bring a difference to China’s foreign aid delivery system. However, almost two years into its creation, has the CIDCA begun to make a difference? An examination of its mandate and setup was given to us by several international consultants.
How would you evaluate the CIDCA’s activity so far?
„The CIDCA is actively involved in furthering the effectiveness of aid as a key foreign policy instrument, improving the strategic planning and overall coordination of aid, centralizing aid management, reforming modes of aid delivery and in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The CIDCA, right from the first week of its establishment, proactively initiated two to three meetings per week with international country delegations and donors. The CIDCA is not designed to manage disbursement, procurement or the selection of recipient countries; it refers to the requests from foreign entities and their needs to those concerned. At the outset, it was considered that the CIDCA would be a replica of USAID or the World Bank or other international donors. However, it is merely a central entity that can highlight all aspects of foreign aid and recommend further formalities to those concerned. The CIDCA has limited staff, but its achievements in terms of consolidation and consultations are commendable. Additionally, the CIDCA is facilitating the training of Chinese and foreign nationals in the Sustainable Development Initiative.”
„Analyzing its activities linked to its mandate, CIDCA seems to be taking steps towards improving strategic planning and aid coordination as well as better serving China’s diplomatic ambitions with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as its blueprint. The CIDCA, an institution directly reporting to China’s State Council, emerged as a mediation remedy to deal with the organizational overlap and longstanding political agenda frictions linked to foreign short-term commercial responsibilities and aid policy setting between the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). The CIDCA also brings together the various responsibilities of over 30 government agencies involved in China’s foreign aid to improve state efficiency in the delivery of aid.”
„The CIDCA is not only one of the footnotes for China’s foreign affairs strategy, but also acts as one of the major measures adopted under the guidance of China’s foreign policies. The establishment of the CIDCA will fully utilize the influence of international development cooperation in China’s foreign affairs and will make better connections with other international organizations. The CIDCA has expanded the range of international development cooperation and many less developed countries have accepted assistance from the CIDCA through different cooperation methods.”
How has China’s foreign aid delivery system changed since the establishment of the CIDCA?
„The delivery system of Chinese financial aid and technical cooperation, even after the establishment of the CIDCA, remains unchanged. This is evident from the fact that, under CPEC aid, over $62.00 billion was committed in 2014-16 to Pakistan. Following regime changes in 2018, the aid-loan agreements were revisited and the vice-chairman of the CIDCA held meetings with the Ambassador of Pakistan. However, he was not involved in the terms of the agreement or the disbursement or other details, etc. The delivery system of the CIDCA is not functioning as a world-class donor agency as conceptualized by other agencies such as USAID, DFID, the World Bank and ADB. The CIDCA is a coordinating and management organization, acting as a point of contact with the other ministries. Thus, after the formation of the CIDCA, the process of foreign aid continues as under the old system and the BRI and aid projects will be implemented by companies, with equipment, machinery, and technology from China.”
„Development assistance has taken center stage in Chinese international relations. The CIDCA is meant to facilitate the smooth delivery of China’s foreign assistance anchored on BRI. What is the relationship between BRI’s foreign policy goals and China’s foreign aid agenda? Simply that the latter must align to the former. In essence, the BRI is a de facto blueprint for the CIDCA from which to draw its long-term vision. Nearly two years into existence, the CIDCA has clearly established its position and footprint as the face of China’s development aid with great visibility, mainly that of its top leaders interacting with international partners including signing bilateral agreements. The CIDCA, a new vehicle, and co-driver in channeling China’s international development assistance, is a part-remedy for much-needed reform in China’s aid system (policies, institutions, and management). For this, the CIDCA needs to be guided by other policy and strategic documents. It is hoped that China’s next-generation “White paper on Foreign Assistance”, due in 2020, will shed light on the medium-term perspective for CIDCA to use in formulation of its strategic programmes with recipient countries; provide clarity on flexibility in tailoring its assistance to priorities of recipient countries as well as facilitate increased CIDCA human capacity and presence (i.e. Development Counsellors in Chinese Embassies) to support policy coherence and monitoring implementation.”
„The previous China foreign aid delivery system was quite traditional and less transparent. The data regarding foreign aid could not reflect the real status due to disseminated numbers which were not collected by one special department which led to many misunderstandings and misjudgment by other countries. The establishment of the CIDCA will enable the collection of all the data on the foreign aid and for it to be published free from any misleading information. Meanwhile, it will be acting as a reference which is quite helpful for the government of China in the creation of foreign aid budgets thus, reducing waste of funds from taxpayers in China.”
Check more than 40 job opportunities in China in international development here.
