South-South Cooperation as an Alternative Development Strategy: Rethinking Development Cooperation through South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean- Brazil and Haiti

The dissertation examined the South-South cooperation as an alternative development strategy for Southern countries by targeting the collaboration between Brazil and Haiti, two countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Examining development cooperation between Brazil and Haiti could contribute to a better understanding of the central question, why Southern countries engage in South-South cooperation? In the context of the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing reduction of aid coming from Global North countries to developing countries, South-South cooperation has become an alternative economic and political arrangement from the more traditional North-South framework. For this reason, South-South cooperation between emerging donors and recipients was deemed an important development for the international aid architecture as a whole. A combination of semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires were conducted to capture the professional, diplomatic and political perspectives of high-ranking officials, leaders and experts on South-South cooperation and Latin American and Caribbean relations. The study’s findings revealed that the benefits and challenges of the South-South cooperation framework does not affect development in a conclusive way.