Author: Emma Mawdsley.

The last few years have witnessed a growing interest in so-called ?non-DAC donors? (NDDs), and China in particular. While this is understandable, there is some danger that the diversity of the NDDs is overlooked, and the debate becomes distorted by an overly China-oriented lens. The focus of this paper is India's development cooperation agendas and activities in Africa, and more specifically, Kenya. The paper argues that despite growing ?noise? about the wider phenomenon of the rise of the non-DAC donors within ?mainstream? foreign aid arenas, the DAC donors in Kenya are only concerned with China. The paper asks whether India's meagre development cooperation relations with Kenya rightly disqualifies it from the attention of the DAC community, or whether the country level is also an appropriate scale for strategically oriented dialogue and possible cooperation, India's modest development contributions notwithstanding.