Bricks for disaster resistant housing.
South-South Cooperation between developing countries and Small Island Developing States has been in practice for the last few decades but with increasingly scarce financial resources globally and the need for greater aid effectiveness, it is gaining more supporters.
Through Pacific Solution Exchange, Karen Bernard from the United Nations Development Programme’s Pacific Centre sought others thoughts on South-South Cooperation and how this works in the Pacific and beyond.
Receiving a total of 16 responses, the June 2013 discussion provided many insights from others experiences and lessons learned that became ‘Chapter 9: Tackling Global Challenges through Triangular Cooperation’ in a book titled ‘Small Islands, Vast Oceans and Shared Challenges’
Authored by Bernard and colleague Lingxiao He, the chapter illustrates the first-ever project that attempted to pilot inter-regional south-south cooperation by linking the Pacific and Caribbean regions, which share similar geography and face common environmental threats.
“In the recent online survey canvassing experiences in south–south cooperation which was conducted on the Pacific Solutions Exchange, many contributors noted that south–south cooperation needed the participation of northern development partners to secure meaningful partnership opportunities and collaboration,” said Karen Bernard.
“This confirms the enduring value of the triangular dimension of south–south cooperation, in which the UN system and key bilateral donors such as Japan can help to frame southern exchanges and facilitate network building, dialogue and partnerships with the view to overarching development issues.”
The book was launched in October 2013.
Pacific Solution Exchange – Climate Change and Development Community is an email-based knowledge sharing service enabling people across the Pacific to ask each other queries and share answers, insights, experiences and lessons learned to help each other in their climate change and disaster risk work. With over 1600 members PSE is administered by the United Nations Development Programme Pacific Centre with support from the Australian Government.
UNDP