What is South-South Cooperation?

Today’s aid architecture has moved far from the traditional “North-South” donor-recipient paradigm to an increasingly complex picture involving actors at different stages of development, new sources of financing and knowledge-sharing.

South-South co-operation refers to the sharing of knowledge and resources between - typically - middle-income countries with the aim of identifying effective practices. “South-South” co-operation has revealed itself to be a major dynamic behind this changing development co-operation architecture.

 

The Task Team on South-South cooperation

In response to the acknowledgement of the importance of new providers of development resources, the Task Team on South-South Co-operation was founded in 2008 after the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana  the objective of delivering evidence-based policy recommendations.

Find out more about the Task Team on South South Cooperation: At a Glance

English (pdf) español (pdf) français (pdf)

 

What we do

In 2010 at the High-Level Event on South-South Co-operation the Bogotá Statement: Towards Inclusive and Effective Development Partnerships was endorsed. This commitment to deepen understanding on South-South Co-operation through mutual learning. outlined good practices to enhance the effectiveness of South South Co-operation.
Read the Bogotá Statement: English (pdf), français (pdf), español (pdf) 

A synthesis of the main findings from 110 case stories on experience with South-South Co-operation, identifying how aid effectiveness principles adapt, enrich and complement aid effectiveness principles and north-south co-operation.

• English part one (pdf);
• English part two (pdf);
• Spanish part one (pdf);
• Spanish part two (pdf)

 

The TT-SSC at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (2011)

At the Fourth High Level Forum in Busan, Korea, the role of non-traditional donors and sources of development co-operation was high on the agenda. The Task Team on South-South co-operation informed the debates at the HLF4 in a number of ways:

• Policy recommendations to inform the HLF-4 outcome document, drawn from the analytical work and on-line community of practice (as below)
• Good practice note that summarises the findings of analytical work, comprised of approximately 15 case studies and additional case stories which are shared and validated through an on-line platform of southern practitioners 

Building Block on South-South Co-operation

Acknowledging the challenges and capacity constraints of many developing countries who are looking to unlock the full potential of South-South and Triangular Cooperation, this building block proposed a set of actions to mainstream good practices and develop capacities at the country-level in order to achieve sustainable development outcomes, overcome poverty, reduce inequalities and fight hunger.