Abstract
This article discusses the concept, design, and contracting processes of the first phase of the TOMAK program (acronym for To’os Ba Moris Di’ak, translated as Farming for Prosperity in English, and Agricultura para Prosperidade in Portuguese). The program was funded by the Australian government and implemented in Timor-Leste between 2016 and 2021. We argue that these processes elevate the program to the status of a commodity, accessed in the global market by specific mechanisms of competition and subject to certain fetishes. The program’s management practices reflect the new role that nation-states have played under the dominance of neoliberalism: as catalysts of competition on multiple fronts. We contextualize the phenomena discussed as products of long-term historical processes related to the reconfigurations of international development cooperation practices. Our analyses are based on documental and digital ethnographies and two decades (2000-2020) of observations in the field of international cooperation in Timor-Leste and beyond.
Keywords:
international cooperation; commodity; Timor-Leste; Australia
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