Knowledge Creation and Sharing for South-South and Triangular Cooperation

Background

South-South and triangular cooperation remain important cornerstones for development, as complements to traditional North-South cooperation. Their growing importance can be seen in inclusion in major development agenda such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Member States, as well as United Nations entities, are increasingly including South-South and triangular cooperation in their development plans, strategies and frameworks as means to achieve development results.

Despite this momentum and acknowledged importance, the potential of South-South and triangular cooperation to contribute to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda has not been fully realized. Some major barriers that have been identified relate to knowledge creation and sharing. In short, Member States have been calling for better systems for identifying, cataloging, analyzing, and sharing South-South and triangular solutions.

In response to these calls, many United Nations entities and other development partners have scaled-up their knowledge activities. For the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), this has meant strengthening the South-South in Action series of reports plus investing resources into other knowledge products. Simultaneously, other stakeholders have been generating their own reports, case studies, policy papers, and similar knowledge products.

Objectives

Expo 2018 is an opportune moment for stakeholders from across the development community, representing both the South and the North, to come together and:

• Share knowledge on South-South and triangular cooperation including best practices
• Promote and discuss knowledge generation and management plans and strategies
• Identify knowledge gaps
• Foster partnerships for multi-stakeholder collaboration

During this side event, five reports detailing South-South and triangular cooperation programmes will be launched:

• South-South in Action: Palestine International Cooperation Agency (PICA and UNOSSC)
• South-South in Action: UNESCO (UNESCO and UNOSSC)
• Least Developed Countries Report 2018: Entrepreneurship for Structural Transformation – Beyond Business as Usual (UNCTAD)
• Forging a Path Beyond Borders: The Global South (UNCTAD)
• South-South in Action: Islamic Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (ICCIA and UNOSSC)

Schedule