£750,000 DFID-ESRC Funding Success

Professor Giles Mohan is to lead a major project that will be the first to assess whether – and if so to what extent and in what ways – China’s national oil companies (NOCs) are delivering developmental benefits for Africa. Generously funded to the tune of £750,000 by DFID-ESRC under their China-Africa programme, Chinese NOCs and the Economic Development of African Oil Producers is one of five new projects to examine the implications for African growth of China’s engagement.

After decades in the doldrums, the growth rates of some African economies are among the fastest in the world. Much of this growth is based on the export of commodities such as oil to China and other emerging economies, and Chinese NOCs – which have major investments in several African countries – are driving the engagement. Although some commentators argue that the Chinese do things ‘differently’ to other oil investors, for example by offering big aid projects to sweeten deals, receiving preferential credit from Chinese banks, or giving infrastructure loans in exchange for oil, it is not yet known whether the different corporate strategies of the leading Chinese NOCs, and the specificities of the African countries they engage with, generate unique forms of development. Nor, if this is the case, whose interests the new forms serve. It would be a mistake, for example, to consider the relationship in terms of one-way traffic with Chinese firms entirely determining the agenda – the agency of African governments is crucial in affecting how things play out.

Building on Professor Mohan and his colleagues’ expertise in the Rising Powers programme, the OU and its partners in Africa, China and the UK will be investigating Chinese NOCs in Ghana, Angola and Sudan over a three-year period.