The concept of South-South cooperation has been with us for more than four decades, since its inception in 1978 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Basically, it involves two or more developing countries working together for their mutual benefit.
It can take place at bilateral, sub-regional, regional or inter-regional levels, and can involve sharing of knowledge and experience, training, technology transfer, financial and monetary cooperation, and in-kind contributions.
That said, the implementation of South-South cooperation has varied from region to region in the global South, with South-East Asia having fared better than the other regions. We might wonder, therefore, why implementation has been so slow or limited in other regions, including in Africa. We adduce reasons for this shortcoming.
Advanced countries
The term ‘South-South’ is not that well understood and many people find it confusing. Understandably, many think it means only countries south of the Equator. What, then, about advanced countries such as Australia and New Zealand? Originally, South-South cooperation was known as ‘Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries’, or ‘TCDC’, which was easily understood. Added to which, even the UN High Level Committee on South-South Cooperation has yet to agree on an acceptable definition for the term. Accordingly, we need to revisit the definition. To this end, African colleges and universities could integrate the concept into their teaching to demystify and deepen the understanding of the concept.
From available evidence, there appears to be lack of political will and commitment to promote South-South cooperation across much of Africa. Most leaders talk about it when making political statements, but follow-up activities have been limited. For example, many African countries have signed bilateral agreements during official visits or summits.
Sadly, most of them are never implemented. Very few of them are followed up—unless, of course, they bring with them immediate political benefits, for example, finding markets for local commodities. If bilateral agreements were taken seriously, they could form the basis of strengthening South-South cooperation.
Against the spirit
African countries have limited financial resources to promote South-South cooperation, unless they receive assistance from third parties. Most assistance has come from the UN system, including bilateral donors. Ironically, this goes against the spirit of the concept, which was conceived as a movement away from donor support to one of reciprocal self-reliance among nations in the global South.
In recent years, to address some of the funding challenges, several middle-income countries have established their own technical cooperation funds to assist other developing countries of the South. These countries include Thailand, Turkey, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and India. In Africa, Nigeria and South Africa have technical cooperation programmes to assist other African countries, in such areas as capacity building. There is a need for other middle-income African countries to follow suit.
In short, African countries should be committed to South-South cooperation because it will benefit them just as it has the countries of South-East Asia.
Dr Kakonge, a development expert, is a former Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN Office and WTO, Geneva; [email protected]
