The increasing power of NGOs is inseparable from the rise in public aid for development, a rise whose contours are not easy to determine because such aid can take many forms. This article seeks to compare how two European development aid agencies function: the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). This comparison allows for two different models of diplomacy to be defined: economic diplomacy, which is the focus of the AFD, and cooperative diplomacy, which is favored by the Sida. These models, which are related to the respective political structures and histories of the two countries, have important consequences on the place that each country accords to NGOs.