No.17 How Can Traditional Donors Become Partners for Emerging Donors? Insights from Indonesian and Thai Development Cooperation

In recent years, the landscape of international development cooperation has undergone a significant transformation due to the rise of emerging donor countries, challenging the traditional aid structure centered on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors. This report focuses on Indonesia and Thailand, two representative emerging donors in Southeast Asia, with the aim of analyzing their development assistance systems, aid philosophies, and operational challenges, while also examining the potential for aid coordination with traditional donors, particularly Japan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

This report is based on a review of existing literature, as well as interviews and questionnaire surveys conducted with development cooperation stakeholders in Indonesia and Thailand. The analysis reveals that, while both countries are strengthening their positions as emerging donors by building on distinctive aid philosophies rooted in their historical experiences and guiding principles, they also face multifaceted challenges. These challenges include limitations in implementation capacity, financial resources, and human resources, as well as shortcomings in evaluation methodologies, aid statistics management, and alignment with and balancing vis à vis international norms.

The findings suggest that, for emerging donors, coordination with traditional donors carries significant value not only as a means of compensating for limited resources, but also as a pathway for capacity enhancement in areas such as institutional development, improvement of evaluation capacity, promotion of public–private partnerships, and engagement with international norms. Looking ahead, in order to further enhance the quality of international development cooperation, it will be essential for emerging and traditional donors to deepen mutual learning and to build concrete and practical frameworks for collaboration, taking into account the balance between their respective aid philosophies and international norms.

Keywords: Knowledge co-creation with emerging countries, Emerging donors, Aid coordination,
Indonesia, Thailand