| Overview : The rapid and sustained economic growth seen in many African countries over the last decade has enabled them to emerge as international cooperation partners and providers. Many have graduated as Middle Income Countries and have coupled their economic strengths with their regional and international political activities and development cooperation interventions, assuming a greater role in the development arena through the sharing of successful experiences with other countries facing similar development challenges in the format of South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSC and TrC) Partnerships. Many of the countries are not only institutionalizing their own development support as bilateral partners, but also looking for multilateral solutions to consolidate their voices and resources for greater impact and reach in development. Additionally, the private sector, civil society organizations, academia, and regional organizations are seeking a more important role in furthering the objectives of SSC and TrC. SSC and TrC have the advantage of establishing more horizontal cooperation partnerships to transfer know-how from one partner to another or to jointly conceive solutions to common challenges. The similarity of development challenges faced by African countries, due to similar economic endowments, fiscal and social structures, policy-making or common geography, cultures and languages, calls for strong partnerships on collective solutions. To effectively undertake the previous roles in the context of the African region, it will be critical for UNDP to bridge fill in the gap in the scarce and unconsolidated information on SSC and TrC activities in the African region. Accordingly, the mapping exercise of different SSC and TrC players and their activities in the continent is critical. The proposed mapping exercise will build on the findings and conclusions of a previous mapping exercise conducted by UNDP in 2014 on its SSC and TrC engagements at the country, regional and global levels. The differences between the elapsed mapping exercise and the current one are: a) Coverage of SSC and TrC activities will not be limited to UNDP but will involve a host of the other stakeholders (i.e., multilaterals, regional entities, governments, non-state actors); b) The geographic scope of the current mapping exercise will focus and zoom into SSC and TrC initiatives in the African continent only as oppose to the whole developing world. To this end, UNDP-RSC is seeking a Senior International Consultant to provide a consultancy services to South-South Cooperation for assessment and Inventory of SSC and TRC. |
