Introduction

Since President Lula came to power in 2003, Brazil has increasingly used development cooperation as a foreign policy tool to strengthen political and economic relations with African countries as part of the country's global power aspirations, notably that of deepening ties with the entire Global South. This diversification of external partners sought to increase autonomy and reduce dependency on the United States and other industrialised countries. While the objectives of the Lula government were similar to those of presidents Jânio Quadros and João Goulart (1961–64) and Ernesto Geisel (1974–79), the domestic and international political and economic contexts were significantly different. On one hand, rhetorically Lula maintained the former discourse of cultural affinities, including assertions of Brazil's African-ness and of Brazil as the secondlargest black nation after Nigeria; on the other hand, he replaced the supposed existence of a racial democracy by stressing that Brazil had a moral and historic debt with Africa due to the contribution of more than four million African slaves to the construction of Brazilian society and culture.

Development cooperation projects were expected to further Brazil's national prestige and visibility in the target countries and strengthen bilateral relations in the political and economic areas. According to White, development cooperation was one of three broad categories of Brazil's Africa strategy under Lula, together with political diplomacy and trade and investment. Brazil used development cooperation with the Global South in general and Africa in particular as a tool to increase the country's soft power in international relations. Joseph Nye perceived the concept of soft power as the capacity of strong states to exercise influence over other countries through the attractiveness of their culture, values and institutions, without military or diplomatic coercion. From a complementary perspective, Stolte assesses Brazil's increased engagement in development cooperation as part of the country's ambitious quest for Great Power status, including a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, an explicit goal of the Lula presidency.

The votes of the then fifty-three African countries were considered crucial to the country's quest to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as well as the election of Brazilian diplomats as head of international organisations. In addition to political objectives, development cooperation was also expected to foster Brazilian companies’ access to African markets.