South-South Cooperation: The new model of human development

Last month delegations from over 160 countries and nearly 4,000 participants from non-governmental organisations engaged in extensive four-day long deliberations at the Second High-Level United Nations Conference on the ‘South-South Cooperation’ (SSC) in Beunos Aires, Argentina. This was also called BAPA+40 to commemorate their 1978 Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries that was signed by 138 and had come to be the corner stone of SSC.

These deliberations, which took place from 20 through 22 March, not only reflected how the world of 1960s and 1970s, when the Gobal North transferred technology and models of development to the Global South, is long gone, but they also successfully adopted a final document that most aptly reflects the evolution and future of SSC; especially its inching beyond its so-called genre of ‘triangular’ cooperation where traditional donor nations and multilateral institutions facilitated SSC projects through funding, training, management and technology sharing. SSC, of course, no longer shuns Global North. Instead, SSC is increasingly seen as their integral strategic partners in accelerating implementation of global ‘Agenda 2030’ for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and towards strengthening of norms-based multilateralism in international relations.

 As an idea, SSC had begun in 1950s as a show of solidarity amongst newly decolonised developing nations in the southern hemisphere seeking collective self-reliance through sharing of their limited capacities and ideas towards their nation building efforts. Non-Alignment Movement had been a major force in promoting SSC and their 1992 Indonesia summit was dedicated exclusively to this theme of SSC where they adopted the ‘Jakarta Message: Collective Action and the Democratization of International Relations.’ Over the years, however, SSC deliberations continued to be influenced by ideas and aid-injections from the Global North.

 The last few decades, however, witnessed an unprecedented rise of several of these nations of Global South with China being its prime example. This has enabled nations of Global South to emerge as celebrated development models — Bangladesh Model being the latest — as also major donor and investors even for the developed Global North. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has become an example of this role reversal in developmental partnership and even World Bank recognises how China has uplifted over 800 million citizens out of poverty in last four decades of reform and opening up.

 As its leading development agency, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) — with offices in 170 countries — has been the key catalyst in SSC’s over 500 projects worth $20 billion in 120 countries. Countries like China and India have since come to be its major partners in promoting SSC.  UNDP had opened office in India in 1951 and in China in 1979 and both these countries have contributed to the changing genre of SSC. Taking the lead in 2016 China, for instance, had set up a $3.1 billion China SSC Climate Cooperation Fund and another $2 billion Fund for SSC Fund for post-2015 Development Agenda. China’s Belt and Road Initiatives — that is today active in over 70 countries — contains elements of SSC as also its evolving new formats and trajectories.

 Likewise, last decade has also seen India extend Lines of Credit of about $25 billion that involve transfer of technology and skills to more than 60 nations of the Global South. These cover both traditional sectors like agriculture, rural development and education as also emerging new frontiers of blue and digital economies. India’s initiatives include climate mitigation through International Solar Alliance, disaster relief like being provided by Indian navy at the devastating cyclone-hit Port Beira in Mozambique or long term projects like Indian Space Research Organisation’s GSAT-9 geostationary communication and meteorological South Asian satellite that was launched in May 2017 for all South Asian countries except Pakistan that has not joined this initiative.

 Over years, development partnerships in SSC have broadened to include grant assistance, lines of credit, technical consultancy, disaster relief, educational scholarships and capacity building etc. India’s Technical and Economic Cooperation program not provides over 13,000 training slots that are open to 161 countries. India’s Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme provides free market access to all the Least Developed Countries’ exports. Since 2017, India-UN Development Partnership Fund provides financial support for developing countries’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) projects.

 Given January 25 remarks of ‘Prachanda’ regarding “intrusion” into internal affairs of Venezuela by “imperialist US’ and more recently visit to U.S. by Nepali foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali contributed to Nepali delegation’s interactions gaining traction and visibility in such a large gathering. It provided them with an opportunity to present their case as a recipient country that was transforming rapidly.  Speech by foreign minister underlined Nepal’s commitment to becoming a middle-income country by 2030 as he sought increased level of investments and cooperation for strengthening national ownership of Nepal’s development projects. This outlined his government’s transformative programs — like Comprehensive Social Security Program, Nationwide Heal Insurance Program, Prime Minister’s Employment Program — aimed at ensuring people’s prosperity and happiness as he urged that SSC’s poverty alleviation must encourage employment generation through higher levels of investments in education and innovation where Nepal can be an important incubator model for several other developing countries.

 To quote Peter Peng Li of Ningbo Nottingham Business School it is the disruptive innovations (jugaad) happening at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ of world populations that will be transforming and determining the future trajectories of shared future of humankind. This means that the potential of SSC model seems pregnant with system shaping capabilities.

(The author is professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)

Aditi Bhaduri

See author's posts