Lídia is a social scientist, with training in economics, social policy and rural development and a multidisciplinary approach to research. She has thirteen years of work experience on international development issues, 3 of which working inside a government office in Mozambique. Lídia has worked as civil servant, independent consultant and researcher across public, private and not-for-profit institutions, mostly in Africa and Latin America. She has collaborated with a range of international organisations such as the African Development Bank, DFID, FAO, IFAD and NEPAD on agricultural policy processes and aid management issues. Lídia is a member of the DFID-funded Future Agricultures Consortium, where she has contributed to research on the political economy of agricultural policy in Africa and has helped launching a new research stream on Brazil and China in African agriculture. Her most recent work focuses on Brazilian cooperation, with particular emphasis on Brazil-Africa encounters in the agricultural domain. Lídia is currently co-leading the Brazil component of the ESRC-funded programme Rising Powers in African Agriculture.

PhD Topic: The politics of South-South cooperation: the case of Brazil’s agricultural cooperation in Africa

The proposed research will investigate the politics of South-South cooperation, with reference to Brazil’s contemporary agricultural cooperation in Africa. It will analyse how cooperation policy is framed, and by whom, and how its practice is shaped by visions of development, of Africa and of South-South affinities and opportunities, as well as by overlapping interests at play across the state and society. The research will draw on political science and anthropology theory applied to a context of maturing democratic institutions and increasing international stature. The empirical analysis of Brazil-Africa interfaces, through the lenses of technical cooperation projects in the agricultural domain, will offer the opportunity to explore how the articulated Brazilian model of cooperation translates to practice. (Work in progress)