Åsa Malmström Rognes

Official development assistance is being redefined and the calculation method updated. This is partly in response to meeting the financing needs for the new sustainable development goals and partly in response to the emergence of new donors whose policies and practice towards development assistance differs from Western donors. This paper traces development thinking and policies in the post-war era in general and examines Japan and China in particular as these countries have a different approach to development assistance and cooperation.

This paper analyses the AIIB; its mandate, resources, governance and how it compares to the other multilateral development banks operating in Asia. When China proposed a new multilateral development bank in Asia devoted to infrastructure, there were numerous questions raised. These included whether there was really a need for another development bank, whether the new bank would have sufficiently high environmental and social safeguards and be as transparent as the existing ones. This examines the AIIB in comparison to the existing multilateral development banks in Asia and in particular the ADB with its emphasis on infrastructure. The paper finds that there is certainly a need for more funding but it isn’t clear that it is best met by another multilateral.