I've been critical of the Land Matrix's early efforts to post a very problematic "database" of large scale land acquisitions. That database was recently revised and has been re-posted (click here). I haven't yet gone through it (I will) but it appears more accurate than the earlier version.

One of the lead researchers, Dr. Ward Anseeuw (from the French research center CIRAC) said to the BBC. "We see from the new data that the activities of China have been overestimated... In the press you see China everywhere, but in the database there is not as much China as we think there is."

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A really excellent background paper for the high level panel on the Post-2015 development agenda, by Jiajun Xu and Richard Carey on development finance: "The Renaissance of Public Entrepreneurship: Governing Development Finance in a Transforming World." Xu, a Ph.D. student at Oxford, and Carey, formerly a thought-leader at the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD (where I got to know him during my time with the China-DAC Study Group), argue that the frameworks set up by today's rich countries are undergoing a period of "creative destruction" as new actors rise, challenging the assumptions and the decisions by (essentially) the West. Thoughtful, pragmatic, and highly recommended.

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS

AgriTT launched a Research Challenge Fund on 17th May, inviting teams of researchers from China, UK and low income countries in Africa and Asia to apply for funding to carry out research on agricultural technology transfer and innovation for food security. Researchers from international organisations or other countries can apply, but there must be a UK, China and LIC research partner in the team. More details are available at www.agritt.org.

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This guest post is by Yuan Li, a master's degree student at Johns Hopkins University/School of Advanced International Studies. It is based on interviews she conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa, in January 2013.

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As I feared, the rubbery AidData number of $75 billion in Chinese "aid" to Africa, 2000 to 2011, is now being circulated as conventional wisdom. A couple of days ago, China Daily repeated the number in a story on Chinese aid.

The subtle difference between "aid" and "finance" was lost in the launch of the database (one can hardly blame the media for this, as AidData began their report on the database by asking "How much aid does China give to Africa?" Their own name suggests that they are focusing on official aid, not commercial loans and export credits...).

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(1) The relatively liberal Chinese magazine Caixin did an interview with me on April 7, 2013. (Sorry, it's all in Chinese but if you use Google Chrome, it will translate for you).

(2) The stirring video, complete with "Exodus" soundtrack, of the China Eximbank-financed Kribi Deep Sea Port in Cameroon, Phase I. More on Kribi: here. This one notes the problems with compensation, disruption, pollution, and also that the construction is being overseen by Louis Berger, a US company. Interesting.

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The debate about AidData's "crowd-sourcing" methodology is heating up (see comments on my post from April 30). A recent note on Development Gateway in support of AidData compared AidData's methodology to Wikipedia, saying that this kind of crowd-sourcing of information can be productive.

I'm actually a big fan of Wikipedia. It is open, transparent, and often very clear and helpful. But I am not using it as a database for cross-country regressions. Many Wikipedia articles are "stubs" or have notes that controversy exists. We can take that into consideration when we read the article. That's also possible if someone is "reading" AidData's dataset. But let's face it, the purpose of having this data is to test relationships. I would be very surprised if users are going to "read" the data and ...

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Today, a new paper and media-based dataset on Chinese aid/finance was released by the AidData project, in an event at the Center for Global Development. AidData collected these numbers over the past year, from media reports. According to AidData, the Chinese have committed $75 billion in official development finance to Africa, 2000 to 2011.

I've been getting a lot of emails asking what I think of this study.

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An article in the South China Morning Post "Rubbery Numbers Add Up to Big Role for China in Africa," (March 29, 2013) illustrates the pitfalls of journalists relying on "experts" who parrot the conventional wisdom but don't really know what's going on. Here are three examples:

According to "expert" #1:

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At the fifth ministerial meeting of the Forum on China Africa Cooperation held in Beijing last summer, the Chinese announced a new pledge of a $20 billion line of credit "for Africa". Almost immediately, reporters began to call this pledge of credit "Chinese aid" to Africa. Jane Perlez at the New York Times probably influenced many when she called it "Chinese aid". Others confidently labeled the $20 billion in finance "concessional".

But was this aid? Was it concessional? I doubted it. But I was on vacation in the Olympic Penninsula National Park at the time, and kayaking in the San Juan Islands. I couldn't check it out, and then it receded as a hot issue.

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