Rising powers such as Brazil, India and China have achieved major advances in supporting economic and social development in their less-developed regions and in creating health and social protection systems in response to the rapid changes they are undergoing. However, there are gaps in the evidence on this, and understanding these experiences better could ensure that the right lessons from these advances are incorporated into international processes of mutual learning.
Mutual learning is emerging as a new way of talking about the ‘how’ of development cooperation, particularly in contexts of rapid change, with countries increasingly recognising that they have much to learn from each other’s experience. Achieving the promise of universal development within the ambitious and complex framework of the Global Goals agreed in 2015 will require much more systematic and strategic efforts to learn from and share the development policy innovations of rising powers such as China and Brazil. This should include exploring opportunities for other countries to engage with the rising powers’ experiences through more structured processes of mutual learning.
What can be done to accelerate mutual learning informed by the important development experiences of rising power countries?
- policy and research communities in the rising powers would benefit from reviewing what has worked well and why, identifying lessons learned using a more systematic approach focusing on the role of political economy and adaptation processes, in addition to technical design. This will contribute to the ongoing management of change in their own countries, as well as to global learning about managing social policy and health system change
- greater recognition is needed of the value of opportunities for policy actors in the rising powers to exchange experiences and research findings between countries, explore solutions to common problems and contribute to global understandings about options for social policy and health system development in contexts of rapid change
- policy actors in low and middle-income countries would also benefit from opportunities to learn more about the rising powers and test the local applicability of lessons from their experiences, as already takes place in the context of South-South Development Cooperation
- global actors involved in promoting mutual learning need to respect the diversity in experiences of development that may be relevant in different contexts, avoiding the imposition of hierarchies of knowledge and ensuring appropriate methodologies are used to build inter-cultural communication
- policy actors and analysts from countries like the UK and other developed countries (i.e. members of the OECD) who are familiar with international development experiences can also contribute to more effective sharing of experiences from both their own domestic learning as well as that of the rising powers, drawing on the lessons from several decades of attempts to support policy transfer for the development of health and social sectors