What’s South-South cooperation, and might it’s the gateway to a fairer world?

In sensible phrases, South-South cooperation is a course of whereby creating international locations – no matter their precise geographical location – search to realize their particular person or shared improvement targets by way of the change of information, abilities, and assets, in partnerships involving governments, regional organisations, civil society, academia, and the personal sector.

The experiences and targets of most international locations in what is called the Global South, intersect as they proceed to chart their post-colonial future and try to satisfy the event wants of their individuals.

In recognition of mutual cooperation between these nations, the UN established the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) in 1974, supporting these efforts on the worldwide stage and inside the UN system.

Pioneering innovators

Ahead of the International Day for South-South Cooperation, marked on 12 September, UNOSSC Director Dima Al-Khatib instructed UN News that international locations of the South – house to 80 per cent of the world’s inhabitants – possess enormous ranges of untapped human and pure assets, and large potential to drive improvement ahead.

“We believe that countries in the Global South not only have challenges but also have solutions and innovations and we must support, encourage, and highlight their pioneering role in these areas,” she declares.

Nevertheless, the challenges are actual and daunting, together with rising geopolitical tensions, debt burdens, a widening digital divide, and social complexities, at a time of declining humanitarian and improvement funding from developed international locations.

This harsh panorama is motivating creating international locations to search for improvement financing by cooperating extra carefully with one another.

Ms. Al-Khatib factors to latest research carried out by her workplace that exhibit that South-South cooperation has the potential to alter the financial equation, create jobs, and construct native capability, in international locations starting from Ethiopia, to Paraguay, Rwanda and others.

Exciting potential within the Middle East

In the Middle East, it’s bearing fruit in areas corresponding to renewable vitality, digital transformation, and local weather change adaptation. For instance, Morocco’s expertise with large-scale photo voltaic farms has been used as a mannequin for renewable vitality tasks in elements of sub-Saharan Africa.

Ms. Al-Khatib says that Gulf international locations are usually not solely offering monetary assist in occasions of disaster however have additionally develop into leaders in sharing their experience.

She factors to Saudi Arabia, which shares its in depth expertise in seawater purification with international locations going through drought, and Masdar City within the United Arab Emirates, which conducts analysis – and develops capabilities that profit international locations within the Global South.

The UN official additionally notes that the Islamic Development Bank has been a key driver of progress, facilitating information change amongst its 57 member states and supporting initiatives corresponding to superior irrigation applied sciences, sustainable agriculture, and climate-resilient infrastructure.

A driving pressure for multilateralism

Ms. Al-Khatib notes that international locations within the Global South are usually not solely coming collectively, but in addition demonstrating their means to take the lead, citing the India-UN Development Partnership Fund and the India-Brazil-South Africa Fund, each of that are hosted by UNOSSC.

She emphasises that this demonstrates the facility of collective motion and sends a powerful message that cross-border cooperation is each potential and efficient.

Amid the tense worldwide political local weather the world is witnessing in the present day, South-South cooperation could be a driving pressure for renewing and strengthening multilateralism, however it isn’t a alternative for cooperation between all international locations.

The senior UN official says there will be no divide between the international locations of the Global North and the Global South, however moderately, “we must build bridges,” a process to which the United Nations is effectively suited, given its core mandate to deal with all international locations equally.