Traditional and “new” donors in Asia: An introduction

Since the mid-1990s, international development cooperation, including multilateral cooperation, has undergone profound changes. The number of actors (including non-state actors) engaged in development activities has increased; intervention methods and tools have transformed and multiplied (for example, foreign direct investment and remittances of migrant workers have assumed particular importance). In addition, the contribution of the private sector has been increasingly highlighted as an indispensable resource and is ever more present in defining new strategies. Moreover, some areas of action have turned out to have higher priority (environment, fight against poverty, support for good governance and internal security) than others, while the strong economic growth of some countries has changed the map of poverty in the world, highlighting how today the majority of the poor, about 75%, is concentrated in middle-income countries. One of the most significant transformations in the devel- opment landscape has been the emergence of a new activism on the part of a group of countries that in relatively recent years have expe- rienced strong economic growth. Classified by the World Bank among the low-income countries until the beginning of the 2000s, they have since then gradually increased foreign aid flows and acquired a certain relevance in the field, so as to become known as «new donors» or «emerging donors» within the international aid community.