An analysis of the published information on Chinese external financial flows/ news article by Sven Grimm with Rachel Rank, Matthew McDonald and Elizabeth Schickerling, Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University
The Chinese government publishes less data about its overseas aid
spending than western donors, but more than is commonly thought,
according to a new report from the campaign group, Publish What You Fund
and the Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch university.
Transparency of Chinese Aid, launched today with a debate at Chatham
House in London, highlights the shortcomings of Chinese aid information
disclosure. These include the tendency to report aggregate levels rather
than country-specific data, the absence of a central monitoring agency,
and the lack of impact assessments.
However, the authors conclude that, contrary to general perception,
provision of information is evolving fast in China and there is a
willingness among the authorities to work with international partners on
aid transparency, in particular looking at the technical details
involved.
“Aid transparency is essential to enhance overall aid effectiveness
and this year is key with the High Level Forum in Korea providing an
opportunity to review donors’ progress,” said Karin Christiansen,
Director of Publish What You Fund. “As emerging donors like China start
to play a more central role in aid provision, it’s important to engage
them in a dialogue about transparency and encourage them to increase the
information available.”
The report’s purpose is not to provide estimates of the overall aid
volumes given by China (which are not systematically reported) but it
reproduces figures from a recent Chinese government white paper, China’s
Foreign Aid, showing that 45% of all Chinese aid in 2009 went to
Africa, 32% to Asia, and 13% to Latin America and the Caribbean. Of
this, two fifths was spent on projects conceptualised, planned, financed
and delivered by Chinese actors.
The Chinese definition of foreign assistance and aid are different
from that used by Western countries, which makes comparison difficult.
The Chinese count military spending as aid, but unlike traditional
donors, do not include debt relief or the cost of educating foreign
students.
According to the recent Chinese government white paper, 11% of their
aid goes to upper-middle income or high-income countries and around a
third is given to countries with the same or higher income per capita
than China. One of the reasons why more country-specific aid
information is not published could be to avoid the tricky questions
about why China is giving aid to middle-income countries when it still
has high levels of domestic poverty.
Others possible reasons for the non-publication of data include
defensiveness towards the still-more substantial Western aid donors;
irritation with the international community demanding adherence to their
standards; desire to avoid competition between recipient countries; and
lack of capacity to deal with the statistics. An additional challenge
is the number of different ministries and state agencies involved in
disbursement of aid.
“Finding information on Chinese aid is like putting together a jigsaw
puzzle. This is of course the case with other donors but the missing
pieces are larger and less comparable in China,” said Sven Grimm,
Director of the Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University,
and the paper’s main author. “What this report shows is a mixed picture:
some progress but still a long way to go before Chinese aid could be
considered truly transparent.”
The report makes a number of recommendations for how China could make progress on aid transparency:
- Initial steps: Assess, test and develop a publication schedule for
aid information that Chinese agencies already hold in line with the
emerging best practice standard set out in the International Aid
Transparency Initiative.
- More substantial steps: Publish existing information already held by
these agencies, in line with best practice, and facilitate the
dissemination and use of this information, particularly by recipient
country governments in the first instance.
- More ambitious steps: Build systems to collect data that is not
currently held and invest in the accessibility and use of that
information in China itself.
The report also notes the responsibility of aid recipients to
articulate the demand for increased donor transparency, and provide
compatible information about their own budgets.
Attempts by the international community to engage Chinese actors are
likely to be best framed in terms of the existing conversations about
“South-South Cooperation”, according to the paper’s authors, rather than
via the concept of aid-transparency.
[Download: Transparency of Chinese Aid: An analysis of the published information on Chinese external financial flows]
Notes:
- Publish What You Fund is the global campaign for aid transparency,
advocating for a significant increase in the availability and
accessibility of comprehensive, timely and comparable aid information,
with the World Bank, U.S., and EU as our main targets –
http://publishwhatyoufund.org/
- The launch of the paper ‘The Transparency of Chinese Aid’ will take place at Chatham House on 14 September at 12:00 – 13.30pm (GMT). Please contact Claudia Elliot at Claudia.elliot@publishwhatyoufund.org or on 0207 9206401 if you wish to attend or for an advance copy of the report.
- The Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University, South
Africa, is the leading African research institution for innovative &
policy relevant analysis of the relations between China and Africa.
