Future of African Aid: “Dubai Model” of Development

[Abu-Salman]

Due to a long shared history, Arab partners have long financed key infrastructure and hospitals in East Africa;

Abu Dhabi aid, Dubai established trade with the region and other links have spurred a new model of co-development that catalyse sustainable growth through key infrastructures (port corridor), coordinated multi-sectorial investments and long-term funding, without neglecting human capital and the environment (Abu Dhabi rulers champion sustainability through aid, Masdar City giant project etc).

 

This is a model of development not previously envisioned and which targets primordially Africa as the new frontier, former French colonies such as Senegal, Djibouti or Rwanda:

 

 

Articulating a "Dubai Model" of Development: The Case of Djibouti,

Ethan Chorin

 

 

Within the course of a decade, Dubai grew from a prosperous Gulf trading city into one of the most dynamic metropolises on the planet. Thus was born the notion of a "Dubai Model," a term that has been variously used to denote something to be both admired and emulated (a formula for self-actualized growth and inter-ethnic and religious tolerance) and denigrated (an unsustainable urban spectacle).

 

This paper argues that there is indeed a strong case to be made for a "Dubai Model of Development. The best evidence for this model is not to be found in Dubai, per se, but in parts of the developing world where Dubai-based entities have invested heavily. Within this field, the most obvious example is Djibouti—that African state with which the Emirate has had the longest and deepest relationship.

 

While heavily informed by techniques and strategies pioneered in Dubai--e.g., dynamic connections between ports, free zones and airports--the basic model is definitively catalytic as opposed to emulative. Djibouti did not simply decide it wanted to be the "next Dubai," it sought Dubai’s assistance as a source of strategy, expertise, and capital. Dubai did not just lend and invest, it created a broad scale of interlocking public-private partnerships that encompassed everything from a super-modern container port, to a network of clinics that serve communities and truckers along the trunk road linking Djibouti with Ethiopia.

 

The story as it unfolds below is extremely interesting not only for what it says about Dubai, but also about what it potentially offers a certain class of developing countries: an alternative (or complement) to a number of failed or incomplete solutions proffered by individual states and multilateral lending organizations.

 

 

Articulating a "Dubai Model" of Development: The Case of Djibouti (PDF file)

 

 

"the Dubai-Djibouti relationship has encouraged neighboring Somaliland’s aspirations for port-led development, based on its well-positioned port at Berbera, which is already used as an entry point for Ethiopia-bound".

 

"As with replicability, sustainability works on many levels.

There is the sustainability of the implementing agent—Dubai—, the sustainability of the

associated partnerships and projects, communities and environment. Ironically, part of

the proof of Dubai’s own robustness is to be found in the sustainability of its international

infrastructure investments. Djibouti has helped shield Dubai from the worst of the slump

by adding a counter-cyclical, high-growth component to its portfolio. With respect to the

“investee,” Djibouti, for one, was apparently doing well enough to proclaim itself “immune” to

any financial difficulties facing Dubai as a whole".

 

"What we have seen in Dubai’s experience in Djibouti is a model of “assisted growth,” whereby

together, Dubai’s public, government, and non-governmental constituencies may have

created something approaching a “Big Push,” the holy grail of 20th century development

economists, who postulated conditions under which an industrializing country might escape

the “vicious circle of poverty.”"

 

 

 

 

Chorin served from 2004-2008 as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, posted to Libya and the United Arab Emirates.

During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, Chorin was a member of the Obama campaign’s Middle East Policy Group.

Chorin holds a Ph.D. in Resource Economics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. in International Policy Studies from Stanford, and an undergraduate degree in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from Yale.

A two-time Fulbright recipient (Yemen, Jordan), he speaks Arabic, Farsi and French. Chorin is the author of Translating Libya: The Libyan Short Story (Saqi Press, 2008). His translations and Op-Eds have appeared in Words Without Borders, the Financial Times, and L’Orient Le Jour.

ethanchorin.com