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Webinar: Promoting South-South Solidarity for SDG3, 30 September 2020

Webinar: Promoting South-South Solidarity for SDG3, 30 September 2020

When: 30 September 2020, 8:30AM – 10:00AM, New York time
To join this webinar, please click here.

Introduction

This year’s UN General Assembly will mark the United Nations 75^th anniversary with an overall theme on ““The future we want, the United Nations we need: reaffirming our collective commitment to multilateralism – confronting COVID-19 through effective multilateral action”. It will come at a time of great disruption for the world, brought about by an unprecedented global health crisis with severe economic and social impacts. The anniversary will provide an opportunity to reflect on the vital role of international solidarity and collaboration to support the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while effectively responding to the global COVID-19 crisis and recovering better, especially in the Global South. South-South cooperation provides an effective horizontal development cooperation mechanism between State and non-States actors in the health sector of developing countries, and more than ever, country-to-country learning proved its value. South-South and triangular cooperation continues to make important contributions to addressing and mitigating the impact of e emerging and re-emerging public health crises such as COVID-19, Ebola and vaccine preventable diseases In the current global health crisis, countries in the global South contribute to the global response by demonstrating effective measures to deliver essential health and social protection services while responding to COVID-19.

Demand for country-to-country learning increased as countries struggled to respond to COVID-19, including on how to ensure delivery of basic health and reproductive health services as governments sought to contain the pandemic. Achieving SDGs broadly calls for a need for more effective development cooperation among countries of the South to address the health system and public health challenges.

Background and Objectives

Earlier this month, the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) in collaboration with its development partners launched the 3^rd Volume of the “Good Practices in South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Development”. The 3rd volume features innovative solutions from the Global South that are relevant to the implementation of the SDGs. The objective is to demonstrate how South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation support countries to overcome shared challenges and accelerate progress towards sustainable development.

The publication includes a dedicated chapter on SDG-3: Good Health and Well-being which bring together a collection of 30 good practices in the areas of provision of quality essential health services, including reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH). To this end, UNOSSC, jointly with UNICEF, UNFPA, PAHO/ WHO are jointly organizing a virtual event to showcase the health-related solutions featured in this new volume. This will enable to communicate, share success stories, and experiences, which are also relevant to the unprecedented global health crisis triggered due to COVID-19 pandemic. These solutions demonstrate measures to improve access and outcomes of health services through the use of innovative techniques and replication measures.

Additionally, this year, marks the first anniversary of the launch of South-South Galaxy, a digital platform designed for knowledge sharing and partnership-brokering to promote cooperation among the southern countries. During the event, partners will provide highlights on the added value of South-South Galaxy and its utilization in their work to promote and facilitate South-South and triangular cooperation. Good practices from the publication are featured on the platform to help build connections and partnerships for the replication and scaling up of these good practices to overcome shared challenges.