The politics of gifts and reciprocity in South-South Cooperation: The case of India's Covid-19 diplomacy.

Development economists have often argued that South-South flows of capital and aid are devoid of the conditionalities and hierarchies that define North-South flows of the same. Maussians and neo-Maussians maintain that gifting-which allows for the ethos of reciprocity-leads to the formation of more equal international partnerships. This article focusses on India's development diplomacy. We unpack Indian cultural notions of 'gifting', which do not allow for imaginings of reciprocity, and show how 'the gift' has been strategically employed by Indian actors as a tool of state-making to forge relations of hierarchy and dependence globally.

Chinese and Indian COVID-19 Vaccine Diplomacy during the Health Emergency Crisis

Health diplomacy has played a vital role worldwide during the coronavirus outbreak. One crucial mechanism in this regard has been "vaccine diplomacy,” which describes country efforts to share COVID-19 vaccines. China and India are ahead of other countries in bilateral vaccine donations due to their South-South Cooperation policies. Looking forward, how and why are these two countries employing their vaccine diplomacy strategies? We compare the engagement of both in this field using a Comparative Foreign Policy Analysis framework. Our results suggest that neither is acting only for altruistic reasons, because economic and political interests are the main drivers behind their strategies. © 2022, INSTBRASILEIRORELACOESINT. All rights reserved.

Reinvigorating Policy and Modifying Practices: Lessons Learned from Indonesia's South-South Cooperation during COVID-19

The COVID-19 global pandemic has severely impacted and challenged the globalized world. In the pre-pandemic era, human mobility and connectivity became the beacon toward developing cooperation, but now, countries are facing the consequences of lockdowns and other restrictions. However, this chapter argues that the global crisis still highlights the need for countries to continually expand cooperation as in the case of Indonesia. This chapter addresses critical questions: how the Indonesian government regulates and implements its South-South Cooperation (SSC) policy during the pandemic and what are the implications for future cooperation. Adjustment and alteration to Indonesia's SSC policy cannot be avoided in response to President Joko Widodo's policy directions. Therefore, the implementations of the development cooperation program have been modified with a new approach like the online technical cooperation training program. The challenges and opportunities for developing a coherent policy and implementing it during the COVID- 19 pandemic should be acknowledged as it gives value to Indonesia's roles in SSC. With the lessons learned from the implementation of the program, the roles of the state in extending national policy became more significant during this crisis. © 2022 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Role of India in South–South Cooperation to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals

Along with most countries, India is committed to following the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. It is widely accepted that North–South development cooperation models alone will not be sufficient for developing countries to achieve the bold ambitions of the associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Covid-19 pandemic further highlights the importance of South–South Cooperation (SSC) to foster the development of complementary capacities of countries facing similar kinds of challenges. SSC will contribute to, and strengthen collective self-reliance among developing countries through the exchange of experiences, sharing of the best practices, and technical expertise. As a part of its foreign policy initiatives like "Neighbors First”, "Act East”, and "India-Africa Partnership”, India strives to keep good relationships with neighborhood, and wishes to play an active role in SSC by providing technical and financial assistance to the other countries according to their needs and priorities. As a result, India's engagement in SSC has increased manifold in the last decade. South–South cooperation has become vital to achieving the SDGs, but also to foster regional peace and stability. There is, however, a need to develop effective mechanisms for the control monitoring of the effectiveness of SSC. © 2023, The Centre for Science and Technology of the Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries.

Ethical Issues Relating to Indias COVID-19 Vaccine Policy: An Idealistic vis-a-vis Realistic Perspective

The socio-economic challenge emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic can be effectively arrested by inoculating the people all over the world. Tiding over the pandemic warrants vaccine solidarity by ensuring equity in the vaccine distribution among the countries around the globe. However, the Vaccine Nationalism (VN) attitude of many countries, especially the countries from the global north, is threatening the global fight against the pandemic. VN refers to the problem of the rich or vaccine-developing countries securing a majority of the supplies of vaccines initially to inoculate their own population. In this backdrop, the article highlights the case of the vaccine diplomacy of India, the domestic problem of vaccine shortages, and future directions. The vaccine diplomacy strategy adopted by India can be viewed as a humanitarian approach in the spirit of considering the world as one family from the idealistic viewpoint, whereas such steps can be seen as a strategic measure to counter China’s dominance in South Asia and also to reposition its global image. Such initiatives are also in line with South-South Cooperation and South-South and Triangular Cooperation. However, trading-off between domestic vaccine requirements and foreign vaccine requirements is extremely important for India, considering its huge population. Scaling up vaccine production by ensuring voluntary licensing for Indian origin vaccines, tackling vaccine hesitancy, and eventually, promoting vaccine solidarity will remain at the centre of the vaccine policy decision in the near future.

Development policy from a systemic perspective: changes, trends and its future role within a broader framework for transnational co-operation

Over the past decade a number of changes can be observed within the development policy system. This paper presents and discusses these changes along three dimensions: narratives, strategies and operational approaches. Changes are manifold, ranging from the application of new narratives, such as the migration narrative, to alternations in strategic objectives (e.g. developing countries’ graduation issues), new instruments (in the form of development finance at the interface with the private sector), and the application of new concepts for project implementation (e.g. through frontier technologies). We discuss the implications and effects of these changes for the current and potential future role of the development policy system, as well as preliminary ideas for a concept of global co-operation for sustainable development (GCSD), spanning beyond the development policy system.

Cooperation in health governance between China and Argentina in the context of COVID-19 from the perspective of multilevel governance

This article aims to analyze the China-Argentina health cooperation in the face of the COVID-19 health crisis from the perspective of multilevel governance. It has been shown that state and sub-state actors played a dominant role in the first cooperative stage, while non-state actors started to play an increasingly active and significant role in the second stage. Through health cooperation between the two nations, Argentina has managed to overcome some of the challenges posed by the pandemic and has improved its health governance capacity in facing the coronavirus. To cope with the second wave of the epidemic, these two countries' health cooperation needs to be strengthened at multiple levels.

South-South humanitarianism: The case of Covid-organics in Tanzania.

Tanzania's President sent a plane to Madagascar in May 2020 to bring a shipment of Covid-Organics, a purported cure and prevention for COVID-19. The herbal remedy was described as a gift to help African countries in need. Drawing on preliminary data in English and Kiswahili from unstructured participant observation, social and legacy media available online and shared through contact channels, and ongoing conversations, we explore the Tanzanian policy response to COVID-19. What can the exemplary case of Covid-Organics in Tanzania help us to understand about South-South humanitarian assistance (SSHA) in times of crisis? We suggest that Covid-Organics has enabled the government to project a link to latent debates about Pan-Africanism and Julius Nyerere's legacy and Madagascar's SSHA has provided an opportunity for a public reflection on Africa's place in the world. For some, the remedy's 'Africanness' is its comparative advantage, even promising a continental renaissance. For others, the lack of scientific evidence or approval by global health authorities like WHO is delegitimizing. These findings suggest that receivers of SSHA make sense of it in both a broad, post-colonial discursive context and in a specific context of local contestation. If the promise of this particular form of aid is its ability to transcend deep divisions between North and South, the case of Covid-Organics suggests that SSHA draws on deep ideologies of Pan-Africanism; is increasingly important in crises that are global; and like other forms of humanitarianism, reflects elite politics and priorities rather than prioritizing the distribution of humanitarian goods and decreasing inequality.