Round Table on Making the Case for a Bigger Role for South-South Cooperation in Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals that Impact Children

South-South Cooperation has evolved into a mature and critical modality for delivering development results. This is recognized under Sustainable Development Goal 17, which acknowledges that South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation are essential in delivering on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. There has been significant progress made in protecting the rights of children and improving their welfare. UNICEF believes that South-South cooperation is a valuable tool not only for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals but also in fulfilling the rights of all children and young people, especially those in the global South. Despite the above progress, however, South-South cooperation has not been used systematically and on a global scale to address persisting and emerging development challenges affecting children and young people.

This round-table discussion seeks to make the case for a bigger role for South-South and triangular cooperation in delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals that impact children and young people. Within the preparatory processes leading up to the BAPA+40 Conference, UNICEF and UNOSSC, in collaboration with the Governments of Argentina, Thailand and Uganda and the Islamic Development Bank, are convening a roundtable discussion on the role of South-South and triangular cooperation in advancing the Goals that impact children.

The round table will seek to:

• Build a case for the potential role of South-South and triangular cooperation in delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals that impact children and young people;
• Showcase success stories of Governments and partners in achieving results for children, which are increasingly shared and scaled up through different South-South cooperation modalities; and
• Produce a summary note highlighting some principles and priorities for the potential role of South-South and triangular cooperation in advancing the Goals that impact children that could inform deliberations for the BAPA+40 Conference.

Organizer: UNICEF, UNOSSC