Post BAPA+40 Report of the Secretary-General on the State of South-South Cooperation Introduced

Tarik Iziraren, Deputy Director for Policy and Strategic Partnership of the United Nations Office of South-South Cooperation, introduced the 2019 Report of the Secretary-General on the State of South-South Cooperation (document A/74/336) to the Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee) of the General Assembly. The report highlights follow-up to the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperationand is focused on, among other things, specific measures undertaken by the United Nations development system to enhance its support for South-South and triangular cooperation at the global, regional and national levels during the reporting period. It also contains recommendations for the way forward.

The year 2019 marks the beginning of a transformative era for South-South and triangular cooperation, he said, with the conclusion of the BAPA+40 Conference in Buenos Aires and through the adoption of the Conference outcome document (resolution 73/291). He noted that South-South cooperation is now emphasized in over 80 United Nations Sustainable Development Frameworks at the country level and that there has been a surge in new partnerships drawing on South-South and triangular cooperation.

Mr. Iziraren highlighted that the outcome document reaffirmed the importance of the development of a United Nations system-wide strategy on South-South cooperation, which currently being led by UNOSSC through the United Nations Inter-Agency Mechanism for South-South and Triangular Cooperation. Currently, 40 UN entities participate in the mechanism.

“The UNOSSC, besides the support provided to policy dialogues of Member States, promotes the exchange of best practices and experiences as well as the establishment of partnerships among practitioners of South-South and triangular cooperation through the Directors-General Forum,” said Mr. Iziraren, “which brings together every year the heads of national entities dealing with international cooperation.”

Mr. Iziraren also invited all stakeholders to utilize the recently launched South-South Galaxy knowledge sharing and partnership-brokering platform through which users can access a broad range of knowledge, solutions, cutting-edge research, capacity building initiatives, and partners.

Report of the Secretary-General on the State of South-South Cooperation (document A/74/336) is linked here: https://undocs.org/en/A/74/336

General Assembly Meetings Coverage is linked here: https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/gaef3524.doc.htm