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Paper short abstract

China’s new aid agency CIDCA shows how emerging donors respond to shifts in development cooperation. Applying hybrid professionalism to policy documents and elite interviews, the paper shows how CIDCA blends domestic priorities with international standards while pursuing reforms and adaptation.

Paper long abstract

With traditional donors scaling back aid and demands rising for new South–South partnership models, debates have increasingly centred on the institutions and mechanisms emerging donors create to organise development cooperation. This paper examines how a new state-led development agency in the Global South navigates changing dynamics in development politics. Drawing on the theory of hybrid professionalisation, this analysis examines the institutional development of China’s International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) since its establishment in 2018, focusing on how professional authority, service routines, autonomy, and legitimacy are constructed under dual pressures from domestic strategic priorities and international standards.

Empirically, the study is grounded in qualitative analysis of policy documents and elite interviews with practitioners involved in China’s development cooperation. The findings suggest that CIDCA has pursued a hybrid model of professionalisation: it selectively combines domestic development strategies with international standards to strengthen coordination and retain flexibility. This approach has enabled reforms through small-scale project modalities, multilateral engagement, and more systematic evaluation practices. At the same time, institutional constraints persist, including incomplete structural adjustments and limited implementing powers. Shaped by inherited domestic arrangements, these constraints point to the need for continued adjustment and adaptation as CIDCA seeks to consolidate its role as a development agency.

By treating CIDCA as an institutional response to a post-aid landscape, the paper contributes to debates on how emerging donors build new mechanisms of engagement—and the limits of such hybrid arrangements for equitable, mutually beneficial partnerships.