IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v52y2016i6p780-796.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Ground-Truthing’ Chinese Development Finance in Africa: Field Evidence from South Africa and Uganda

Author

Listed:
  • Edwin Muchapondwa
  • Daniel Nielson
  • Bradley Parks
  • Austin M. Strange
  • Michael J. Tierney

Abstract

A new methodology, Tracking Underreported Financial Flows (TUFF), leverages open-source information on development finance by non-transparent, non-Western donors. If such open-source methods prove to be valid and reliable, they can enhance our understanding of the causes and consequences of development finance from non-transparent donors including, but not limited to, China. But open-source methods face charges of inaccuracy. In this study we create and field-test a replicable ‘ground-truthing’ methodology to verify, update, and improve open-source data with in-person interviews and site visits in Uganda and South Africa. Ground-truthing generally reveals close agreement between open-source data and answers to protocol questions from informants with official roles in the Chinese-funded projects. Our findings suggest that open-source data collection, while limited in knowable ways, can provide a stronger empirical foundation for research on development finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Edwin Muchapondwa & Daniel Nielson & Bradley Parks & Austin M. Strange & Michael J. Tierney, 2016. "‘Ground-Truthing’ Chinese Development Finance in Africa: Field Evidence from South Africa and Uganda," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(6), pages 780-796, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:52:y:2016:i:6:p:780-796
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2015.1087510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2015.1087510
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220388.2015.1087510?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Isaksson, Ann-Sofie & Kotsadam, Andreas, 2018. "Chinese aid and local corruption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 146-159.
    2. Samuel Brazys & Johan A. Elkink & Gina Kelly, 2017. "Bad neighbors? How co-located Chinese and World Bank development projects impact local corruption in Tanzania," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 227-253, June.
    3. Fon, Roger & Alon, Ilan, 2022. "Governance, foreign aid, and Chinese foreign direct investment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113678, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Xu, Zhicheng Phil & Zhang, Yu, 2020. "Can Chinese aid win the hearts and minds of Africa’s local population?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 322-330.
    5. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Hodler, Roland & Parks, Bradley C. & Raschky, Paul A. & Tierney, Michael J., 2019. "African leaders and the geography of China's foreign assistance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 44-71.
    6. Tom Ogwang & Frank Vanclay, 2021. "Resource-Financed Infrastructure: Thoughts on Four Chinese-Financed Projects in Uganda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-22, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:52:y:2016:i:6:p:780-796. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.