About the GSSD Expo

Launched in 2008, the Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) is an annual global event organized by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) in its capacity as the General Assembly-mandated global and United Nations system-wide coordinator and facilitator for South-South cooperation, with full UN system-wide support and participation of all UN specialized agencies and programmes as well as strong support and partnership of other inter-governmental organizations and entities of the South.

The GSSD Expo is designed to showcase evidence-based successful development solutions and initiatives created by institutions of countries from the global South to address development challenges. It provides a powerful platform for development actors from various backgrounds to showcase their development solutions, celebrate successes, disseminate information, share knowledge and lessons learned, explore new avenues for collaboration and initiate new partnership efforts.

The GSSD Expo is a place for identifying concrete ways to scale up and adapt solutions. It amplifies and celebrates the collective effort and impact of showcasing development solutions that brings together all stakeholders – policy decision-makers, solution providers, solution seekers, solution beneficiaries, funders/supporters and development practitioners – into one major single event – as a direct response to the expressed needs and desire of stakeholders from the global South.

The GSSD Expo, as the one and only UN system- and world-wide platform for systematic showcasing of development solutions at national, regional and global levels, was endorsed by the UN General Assembly in the Nairobi Outcome Document adopted at the last High-level UN Conference on South-South Cooperation, held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2009.

Each year, GSSD Expo’s annual theme is jointly decided by the members of the Advisory Committee based on evolving priorities of the South and the mandates and priorities of the host country vis-à-vis new directions from the UN including the goals and achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The following themes have been focused in past Expos: