Tarik Iziraren, Deputy Director for Policy and Strategic Partnership of the United Nations Office of South-South Cooperation, introduced the 2020 Report of the Secretary-General on the State of South-South Cooperation (document A/75/371) to the Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee) of the General Assembly.
The report focuses on concrete measures undertaken by the United Nations development system to expand its support to South-South and triangular cooperation initiatives of Member States at the global, regional and national levels since the release of the previous report (A/74/336), including implementation of the recommendations contained in the Buenos Aires outcome document of the second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation and contributions to global efforts to tackle the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
With the adoption of the Buenos Aires outcome document of the second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation, the international community decided to work together through the modalities of South-South and triangular cooperation to leverage the wealth of resources, tangible and intangible, available among countries of the global South in support of national, regional and global development efforts. In the year following the convening of this landmark conference, the United Nations development system, along with State and non-State partners, have further leveraged South-South and triangular cooperation in supporting national efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
On the basis of survey data collected by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, there has been a surge in the number of activities, as indicated in section II of the report. Over 140 policy dialogues and more than 175 programmes and capacity-building activities were convened by 27 United Nations entities to support the unabated growth of South-South and triangular cooperation. The conclusions set out in section V indicate that, against the backdrop of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, a number of measures have served to provide direction to further leverage South-South and triangular cooperation to help countries to recover better and to accelerate the attainment of the Goals, including strengthened partnerships; abundance and uninterrupted dissemination of technology-based solutions; and innovative resource mobilization.
The report provides recommendations for the way forward, with South-South cooperation positioned as a key modality to help to accelerate progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in the context of the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development.
The report may be read in conjunction with other relevant reports
prepared for the twentieth session of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation.
Report of the Secretary-General on the State of South-South Cooperation (document A/75/371) is linked here: https://undocs.org/en/A/75/371
