South-South Cooperation

Photo credit: Dr. Manuel F. Montes, Senior Advisor on Finance and Development of the South Centre, speaking at the ECOSOC DCF event in Buenos Aires held on September 6-8, 2017. Source: South Centre

South-South Cooperation Helps Achieve UN Development Goals

By Silvia Espíndola*

The author is Undersecretary of International Cooperation of the Republic of Ecuador. Following are excerpts from his statement at the Workshop titled South-South Cooperation forty years since BAPA: Challenges and Opportunities during the ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) meeting, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 6, 2017 – in the run-up to the UN Day for South-South Cooperation was celebrated worldwide on September 12. – The Editor

GENEVA (IDN-INPS | SouthNews) - Since the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among developing countries (1978), South-South cooperation has been steadily gaining momentum and has shown encouraging trends. Many initiatives attest to the increasing importance of South-South cooperation as a growing dimension of international cooperation for development.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 14 September 2017

Photo: Addis Ababa Financing for Development Conference 2015. Credit: climateobserver.org

Argentina to Host the Second UN Conference on South-South Cooperation in 2019

By Adriano José Timossi

The United Nations General Assembly adopted on 28 August 2017 a draft resolution calling for the organization of the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation to be held in Argentina in 2019. The Conference will mark the 40th anniversary of the first UN Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries also held in Buenos Aires almost forty years ago, a milestone event in the history of the UN and multilateralism.

GENEVA (IDN | SOUTHNEWS) - The United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus on August 28, 2017 the draft resolution titled Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation to be held in Buenos Aires from March 20 to 22, 2019.

: South Centre; UN INSIDER; 06 September 2017

Photo: Solar energy has become the way to go amid deepening electricity deficits across Southern Africa. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IDN-INPS.

Southern Africa Turns to the Sun as Energy Woes Bite

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE (IDN) - He struggles with a huge solar panel as he crawls on the rooftop of his house. Just below him, on the ground, stands his wife gazing upwards, with one hand partially covering her face from direct sun heat.

Nevson Devera, for that is his name, at the age of 44 and domiciled in Harare the Zimbabwean capital, has not had electricity from the country’s main power utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, connected to his house, 15 years after he built it. Tired of using fossil fuels for energy, he and his wife Sarudzai have turned to the sun for electricity.

: Jeffrey Moyo; THE WORLD; Africa; 02 September 2017

Photo: African ministers call for using and sharing agriculture data to boost food production and contribute to making Africa food secure. Credit: Justus Wanjala | IDN-INPS

Africa Embracing Open Data to Tackle Food Insecurity

By Justus Wanjala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – Despite possessing huge potential for agricultural growth due to the availability of vast land and water resources, Africa’s food production sector is seriously under-performing.

Steps are now being taken in the direction of using and sharing agriculture data to boost food production and contribute to making the continent food secure.

Participants at the Ministerial Conference on Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition and 4^th Agritec Africa Exhibition, held in Nairobi from June 14-16, 2017, agreed that a new mechanism is needed to ensure rapid and sustained growth of food production and put Africa on the path of ending hunger and improving nutrition.

: Phil Harris; THE WORLD; Africa; 05 July 2017

Photo (left to right): ACP Secretary-General Dr Patrick I Gomes, UNGA President Peter Thomson, Council of Ministers President, Ethiopia's Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Dr Abraham Tekeste. UNGA President addressing ACP Council of Ministers on May 3 in Brussels. Credit: UN.

79 ACP States Reflect on Future Ties with EU and the World

By Jaya Ramachandran

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are determined to "undertake the reforms needed to transform the ACP Group into an effective global player, fit for the 21st century, and responsive to the emerging priorities" of member states.

This emerged from the two-day gathering of the ACP Council of Ministers who concluded the 105th session on May 4 with key decisions that will influence how the bloc of 79 countries will carve out a more effective role in the international arena.

According to the President of the Council, Ethiopia's Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Dr Abraham Tekeste, "The current occupancy of the Presidency of the UN General Assembly by Fiji, and the current membership of Senegal and Ethiopia in the UN Security Council, serve to underscore the positive contributions by ACP countries at the global levels."

: Jaya Ramachandran; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 06 May 2017

Photo: Fourth Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development. Credit: ESCAP.

Exercising Power Fairly More Important SDG Yardstick than Democratic Accountability

By Kalinga Seneviratne

BANGKOK (IDN) – In its 2017 Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, the Bangkok-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) makes an interesting argument in regards to achieving the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in seemingly downplaying the importance of democratic accountability and emphasising that how power is exercised is more important.

“In the Survey for 2017 political dimensions, such as democratic accountability, are avoided, and governance is framed in terms of how power is exercised instead of how it is acquired,” the report says in its executive summary.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; UN INSIDER; 03 May 2017

Photo: United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation Director Jorge Chediek closing the Global South-South Development Expo 2016 on 3 November 2016 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Credit: SUSSC

Mainstreaming South-South Cooperation in the UN System

Interview with Jorge Chediek, Director of the UN Office for South Cooperation (UNOSSC)

NEW YORK (IDN) – South-South and triangular cooperation forms an integral part, complementing North-South Cooperation, of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by Member States of the United Nations on September 25, 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.

How is the UN Office for South Cooperation (UNOSSC) – as the global and United Nations system-wide focal point for South-South cooperation – engaging in advocacy, policy development, knowledge sharing and innovative programmatic activities? Ramesh Jaura, Editor-in-Chief and International Correspondent of IDN, flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate group, asked UNOSSC Director Jorge Chediek this and related questions in an e-mail interview. Read the Q&A in full:

: Ramesh Jaura; UN INSIDER; 20 March 2017

Photo credit: UN Office for South-South Cooperation

Eurasia Boosts South-South Cooperation

By Bernhard Schell

DUBAI (IDN) - The rise of emerging economies in the Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (ECIS) region has boosted South-South cooperation, according to a new report.

The study by the UN Office for South-South Cooperation and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is the first of its kind. It explores how mutual support has intensified over the last twenty years, following the region’s fundamental changes in economic, political, and social structures.

The study covers 31 countries and territories, highlighting the wealth of South-South Cooperation (SSC) in the region. It cites many interesting examples of SSC, and provides concrete suggestions to national policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders on how to catalyse SSC to achieve development objectives and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

: Bernhard Schell; SUSTAINABILITY; Global Partnerships; 19 November 2016

Photo: Vicente Paolo Yu (left), Deputy Executive Director of the South Centre, and Maria Helena Semedo (right), FAO Deputy Director-General for Natural Resources, during the ceremony of signature of the Memorandum of Understanding. Credit: FAO | South Centre

FAO Joins the South Centre to Boost South-South Cooperation

By Bernhard Schell

MARRAKECH (IDN) - The South Centre and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN have decided to join together to foster South-South Cooperation with the aim to improve food security, boost rural development, and address climate change in the Global South.

The five-year cooperation agreement – in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – builds on years of collaboration between the two organizations. It was signed on November 11 on the sidelines of the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP22) taking place in Marrakech; Morocco from November 7 to 18, 2016.

: Bernhard Schell; SUSTAINABILITY; Food security, nutrition & sustainable agriculture; 15 November 2016

Photo: Mongolian farmers harvest carrots as part of an FAO South-South Cooperation Programme between China and Mongolia. Photo: FAO

South-South Cooperation Continues to Drive Progress

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - South-South cooperation has come to stay as an important element of international cooperation for development – not as a substitute for, but rather as a complement to North-South cooperation.

According to the UN, it offers viable opportunities for developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their individual and collective pursuit of sustained economic growth and sustainable development.

To mark the importance of South-South Cooperation, the General Assembly decided to observe this Day on September 12 every year, commemorating the adoption in 1978 of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries.