International South-South Cooperation day :

Helping each other prosper

By Pramod DE SILVA

The world is traditionally divided into regions, politically and geographically. The developed countries or the rich countries are in the Northern hemisphere - thus it is called the North. The developing countries are in the Southern Hemisphere - the South. It has now more or less lost the physical meaning and become a metaphor for the developed and developing worlds.

The North-South divide has shaped the world for many decades. Developed countries do assist their less affluent counterparts in the South, a process known as North-South cooperation. Such Official Development Assistance (ODA) by rich countries to developing countries amounts to around US$ 75 billion a year.

South-South Cooperation can end poverty

However, this is a fraction of their collective Gross Domestic Product. Moreover, it has been estimated that nearly US$ 40 billion is 'phantom aid' - aid that is genuinely not available to poor nations to fight poverty and initiate development. In any case, only a fraction of the aid is in the form of outright grants (not recovered again), the rest are loans which have to be paid back over a period of several years or decades. Certain conditions are attached to the aid granted by multilateral lending agencies and donor countries which sometimes infringe on the sovereignty of recipient nations. Some developing countries also get into a debt trap from which it is hard to extricate themselves.

There is, however, a far more appealing initiative. It is called South-South cooperation - the sharing of funds, resources, technology and manpower among developing nations themselves without looking towards the North. When Iran funds an oil terminal in Sri Lanka, that is South-South Cooperation at work. The same goes for an Indian credit line for renovating Sri Lanka's Northern railway line. It does not always have to be money - Sri Lanka is giving higher education scholarships to students from some South Asian nations, which is a form of South-South cooperation. SAARC has recently initiated a SAARC Development Fund and a Food Bank to address two of the region's major problems.

These are just a few examples that illustrate the power of South-South cooperation. Another advantage is that no extraneous conditions are attached to South-South aid.

It is an important element of international cooperation for development and offers viable opportunities for developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their pursuit of sustained economic growth and sustainable development. It is not yet a complete substitute for North-South cooperation, but it could complement such efforts. It is in this context that the international community should support the efforts of developing countries to expand South-South cooperation.

By resolution 58/220 of 23 December 2003, the General Assembly decided to declare 19 December, United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation.

The UN has urged all relevant UN organizations and multilateral institutions to intensify their efforts to effectively mainstream the use of South-South cooperation in the design, formulation and implementation of their regular programmes and to consider increasing allocations of human, technical and financial resources for supporting South-South cooperation initiatives.

According to the State of South-South Cooperation Report of the Secretary-General, August 24, 2009, "the growing trend among Southern countries to look not only to reducing poverty within their own borders but also to raise the development prospects of other developing countries is exhibited across a range of countries, including strong emerging economies and other South-South pivotal countries. The international community is thus increasingly using South-South cooperation as a practical framework and a flexible modality for partnership-building and collaboration towards achieving internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals." Another vital component of South-South cooperation is trade. Developing countries usually have more trade with developed countries than with their emerging counterparts. This situation should change. Developing countries continue to face serious challenges such as poverty, hunger, AIDS, gender gap, fallout of the economic crisis and climate change. The response to these challenges must emerge from developing nations themselves. In a message to mark this year's International Day for South-South Cooperation, UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon stressed the rich contribution of developing countries to the world's collective progress, and encouraged collaboration among them in achieving further advances against hunger, poverty and other global ills.

As the Secretary General points out, 1.75 billion people in 104 countries remain unable to meet some of their basic needs. The number of undernourished people in the world remains close to 1 billion - including more than one in four children under the age of 5 in the developing world. The impacts of climate change, humanitarian crises and armed conflicts only exacerbate the plight of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.

"South-South cooperation is a vital component of the world's response. Developing countries that pool know-how, exchange ideas and coordinate plans can attain much greater gains than they ever would on their own. Such cooperation can positively affect decent work, food security, climate change, health and education," he noted.

The world has undergone a major economic and political transformation in the past two decades. Relationships within the South and between the South and the North have taken on entirely new dimensions.

Current issues such as the environment and climate change, energy and food security, global poverty, spread of disease and migration are today more global than North-South in nature. Unfortunately, it is the developing countries that are mostly bearing the brunt of these factors. Instead of always seeking the help of the North to address these issues, it is more prudent for the developing world to harness their talents and resources for the betterment of their own peoples.