Dima Al-Khatib
Director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation
Multilateralism, solidarity and cooperation embodied in South-South and triangular cooperation are essential in addressing challenges that transcend borders. In these times of turbulence – growing geopolitical and economic fragmentation, mounting financial and debt distress, increasing frequency and severity of disasters — they are even more crucial.
The Latin American region illustrates the impact of efforts anchored on these principles. Its trailblazing experience in institutionalizing these cooperation modalities shows how we can forge Southern-led sustainable development pathways, with broader Northern and Southern support through the UN system.
Five years to 2030, the year we, the UN, aim to achieve our Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), only 17 percent of our targets are on track and over one-third are stalling or regressing. In Latin America, analysis of SDG implementation describes some progress but at a pace that has not moved targets decisively from 2015: 41% of the SDG targets in the region are moving in the right direction, but at a slow pace, while 36% are either not progressing or are moving in the wrong direction. The region has not regained the rapid pace it reduced poverty in the decades 1990-2014 (from 51% to 27%), with 26.8% of people in the region remaining in poverty in 2024 (a very slight decrease from 2014).
Developing countries are up against daunting challenges, made worse by the reduction of official development assistance (ODA) and global economic downturns. Serious debt burdens are limiting development financing options, while shifting trade relations and economic fragmentation are constricting investment and income flows.
Absent transformative action, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) projects that only 23% of the SDG targets will be achieved by 2030. To move needles across the SDGs, the region will require strategic support, and it views such support through multilateral cooperation as pivotal. Particularly essential would-be partnerships and capacity building fitting for complex international contexts.
The global community, through SDG forums across regions and deliberations at the UN General Assembly, raises the same imperatives. The 22nd Session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation convenes in May 2025 under the theme “Accelerating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: South-South Cooperation as a Driver for Transformation”, which reflects the urgency across all regions and the hope they place in the potential of South-South and triangular cooperation for transformative change.
South-South cooperation is founded on solidarity among developing countries committed to providing support that ensures mutual benefit and poses no burden. Respect for sovereignty, ownership and self-reliance underpin this cooperation modality. It centers on knowledge exchange and technical cooperation in various fields and has grown in scope since it first entered the global development lexicon as “technical cooperation among developing countries” (TCDC) in the 1970s. South-South and triangular cooperation refers to the broadening of South-South cooperation to involve multilateral and Northern partners in efforts that remain Southern-led.
The United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) is the entity within the UN system that was established to serve as the facilitator of South-South and triangular cooperation globally and within the UN system. It derives its mandate and policy directions from the Member States. Part of its core functions is to support intergovernmental processes at the UN where global and regional decisions are made, helping to inform, for instance, as many as 39 resolutions, declarations and outcome documents in 2024 alone, which set the priorities, agendas and commitments that affect us all.
UNOSSC also helps to identify, channel and facilitate exchanges on context-specific, Southern-led solutions, launching the South-South and Triangular Cooperation Solutions Lab and South-South Galaxy. UNOSSC builds the capacities of UN entities to integrate South-South and triangular cooperation in country frameworks, thereby broadening countries’ access to solutions, partnerships and resources; and manages Trust Funds entrusted to it by Member States, which are designed to support catalytic efforts. Among the champions of South-South cooperation as a complement to traditional development cooperation are Latin American partners.
From its work, UNOSSC has seen how South-South and triangular cooperation have helped Southern countries to forge development pathways that fit their contexts and priorities best – by leveraging proximity of experience for solutions already proven to work in similar settings, such as in the fields of social protection, food security, public health, disaster risk reduction, and digital governance, the region has generated powerful knowledge and tools. A recent example of this cooperation that has been recognized globally is Latin America’s sharing of protocols, technologies, and practices with each other and with countries across Africa and Asia during the Covid-19 pandemic – an expression of solidarity during one of the worst crises to hit humanity.
Latin America has always shown dynamism and resilience. It has navigated shocks and pressures by leveraging, among others, cooperative relations first among neighbors to facilitate economic activities.
The processes involved in the massive lifting of barriers in the region, particularly since the 1960s, established channels and created “ties of profound integration” that enabled cooperation beyond the economic sphere. This experience coincided and linked with processes that built the “muscle” for the institutionalization of South-South cooperation in and through intergovernmental foras, specifically the development of coordinated priority-setting agendas, policies and actions at the regional level (such as at the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States/CELAC, the Common Market of the South/MERCOSUR, the Ibero-American General Secretariat/SEGIB, the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System/SELA, and the Cooperation Technical Group of the Pacific Alliance).
The hosting of the First High Level Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries held in Argentina in 1978, which resulted in the adoption of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA), and of the Second High-Level Conference on South-South conference 40 years later (BAPA+40) helped to consolidate the global recognition of Latin America as “pioneer of South-South cooperation”.
Member States of UNECLAC strengthened the role of South-South cooperation by reframing in December 2021 its Committee on South-South Cooperation into a subsidiary body called the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean. The objectives of this new body include strengthening South-South cooperation mechanisms at the national and regional level; enhancing triangular cooperation to include regional and external stakeholders (including donor countries and international organizations); and enhancing studies and analysis of South-South and triangular cooperation to help inform transformative action across areas prioritized by the region.
UNOSSC, through its South-South Galaxy knowledge sharing platform, South-South and Triangular Cooperation Solutions Lab and South-South Trust Funds and engagement in global as well as regional processes is supporting the identification, channeling and financing of impactful solutions emerging from the global South, including countries in Latin America.
To better understand the current landscape of South-South and triangular cooperation and identify gaps to better shape support that the UN system can provide, UNOSSC is in the process of conducting surveys at the regional and national levels. Initial insights from the exercise conducted with the UN Development Coordination Office for Latin America noted that governments in programme countries in the region have indeed prioritized South-South and triangular cooperation (close to 70% of responses) – reflecting the value countries put on partnerships and multilateral action to address development priorities (through or with United Nations support). Several countries, including Brazil and Mexico, provide compelling examples of how South-South and triangular cooperation are integrated in national priorities and core UN planning tools such as the Common Country Analysis, which inform the development of the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for the country. They demonstrate the importance of ensuring South-South and triangular cooperation are considered in the diagnostic phase of UN programming, to broaden the support that countries can tap when UNSDCFs are finalized.
But we must go further.
To unlock the full potential of South-South cooperation as a driver of transformation, we must address the structural imbalances that continue to limit the capacity of developing countries, we must expand access to climate and development finance, and ensure technology transfer, and support debt sustainability.
South-South cooperation must be seen not as a substitute for North-South cooperation, but as a powerful complement – one that challenges and enriches global development paradigms. Development must be shaped by the experiences and leadership of developing countries themselves.
The road to 2030 is narrowing, but it is not closed. Latin America’s example gives us reason to believe that transformation is still possible – if we choose to invest in cooperation, solidarity, and mutual learning.
Let us bring the full weight of our ingenuity, partnership, and commitment to the task ahead. Only together can we build a world of dignity, justice, and sustainability for all. ∎
Source: THE OXFORD DIPLOMATIC DISPATCH NO.18, 2025
