South-South Cooperation Moving to Centre Stage

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South-South Cooperation is moving up the international aid effectiveness agenda. Colombia is hosting a high-level event on South-South Cooperation and capacity development in March 2010. Capacity4dev.eu will follow the debate up to that event and gives a first overview in this article.

South-South cooperation is appealing on many grounds. It promotes the transfer of practical experience among contexts that, while certainly differing, often share characteristics and constraints. And, southern solutions to development problems can often be better adapted to local conditions than Northern-inspired solutions.

South-South cooperation does, however, face the same challenges as other modes of development assistance in relation to ownership, alignment, and coordination.

Over several decades, South-South cooperation has with varying intensity and success been promoted by the United Nations and other actors. The UN held a major conference in Nairobi on December 1-3 to review 30 years of work on the subject, click here to see more.

South-South cooperation also features strongly as an alternative to traditional northern technical assistance in the technical cooperation reform strategy of the European Commission, and it is referred to in the Accra Agenda for Action.

It is not surprising then, that Colombia, a middle-income country, has named South-South Cooperation and Capacity Development as the theme for the High Level Event to be held in Bogota from 24-26th March, 2010. The event, which may assemble up to 300 participants, is an intermediate international meeting that follows Accra (September 2008) and comes ahead of the next High Level Forum to be held in South Korea in 2011. Colombia, which is still a recipient of development assistance, also sees itself as a provider of support.

There is a dedicated website, South-South Opportunity http://www.southsouth.info/, where you can follow the preparations for the Bogota meeting.

We will follow the preparations for the Bogota meeting, including coverage of how the EU will position itself following the approval of the Operational Framework, which explicitly requests member states to explore options for South-South and triangular cooperation. Click here to read more.

An easy overview of South-South and Triangular Cooperation can be found in this article by Brian Lucas from the International Development Department of The University of Birmingham, UK. Other related reading on South-South Cooperation is available on capacity4dev.eu and can be found using the tag cloud in the right hand column.