Turkey as a New Player in Development Cooperation

Date

2010-11-01

Author

Kulaklıkaya, Musa
Nurdun, Rahman

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ODA has increasingly become an integral part of Turkey’s recent proactive foreign policy. In line with the current government’s objective of creating a more peaceful andstable environment in the surrounding regions, Turkey has interjected itself as animportant stakeholder in the building of regional stability. As an extension of itspolicy of utilizing a wide range of soft power instruments, such as assuming a mediatorrole in regional conflicts, Turkey also increased its level of contribution toODA geared towards helping countries affected by conflicts and natural disasters.At the same time, Turkey’s ambition to act as a major regional power provides anadded impetus to growing its ODA contributions.This article will shed light on Turkey’s aid policy as well as its evolution froman aid recipient country to a new player in the international donor community,by placing it in the context of Turkey’s proactive foreign policy. This article aimsto compare Turkey with other emerging international donors, such as South Koreaand Poland. This will facilitate our understanding of Turkey’s emerging rolewithin the international donor community. Moreover, the article will trace thechanges in the institutional organization of the ODA in Turkey, with particularreference to the role of the Turkish International Cooperation and DevelopmentAgency (TIKA) and its ODA reporting policies.As the direction of foreign aid is determined not only by political and strategicconsiderations, but also by the economic needs and policy performance of therecipient countries,1 this article will argue that Turkey’s foreign aid policy appearsto be motivated by two main factors. First, the current Turkish government isaiming to assume international responsibilities commensurate with its position asa regional power. Second, the growing Turkish economy is in need of new marketsin the developing world for its products. In other words, the political and strategicconsiderations as well as trade concerns with recipient countries are the mainreasons for Turkey’s proactive foreign aid policy.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/114767

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Article