| Overview : South-South Cooperation (SSC) - is a process whereby two or more developing countries pursue their individual and/or shared national capacity development objectives through exchanges of knowledge, skills, resources and technical know-how, and through regional and interregional collective actions, including partnerships involving Governments, regional organizations, civil society, academia and the private sector, for their individual and/or mutual benefit within and across regions (UN, 2009 Nairobi Document) Trilateral cooperation - on the other hand, is largely defined as development cooperation provided by traditional development partners and emerging countries to beneficiary countries (OECD 2009; World Bank 2010, GIZ 2013). Multilateral institutions such as the UN are included as development partners in trilateral partnerships (UNDESA 2009; UNDA Nairobi Outcome 2009). Therefore, trilateral cooperation in this context includes Strategies, programs, projects and activities that aim to transfer soft and hardware support system, share technology and technical expertise, and promote mutual learning closely involving two or more institutions, bilateral or multilateral agencies and partner country institution(s) throughout a project cycle, from initiation, design & implementation, to management and M&E, with each party contributing financial resources and/or technical expertise and/or in kind support. In this sense, trilateral cooperation goes beyond one-off events. It refers to programs of longer duration and more complex structure that aim to deliver longer-term development results In recent year’s partnerships that involve Trilateral Cooperation have helped to diversify economies going beyond government agencies and international organizations to include non-state actors and the private sector. Trilateral Cooperation also covers variety of sector, including agriculture, construction, education, energy, fisheries, forestry, environmental protection, governance, health, industry, natural resources, water & sanitation, infrastructure and services, and population policies (OECD, 2013) The Context The formation of South-South and Trilateral Cooperation can be traced back to the Asian - African Conference that took place in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, also known as the Bandung Conference. In 1978, the United Nations established a Unit for South-South Cooperation to promote South-South Trade and collaboration within its agencies. Historically, the term is being used to describe the exchange of resources, technology and knowledge between developing countries either directly or in cooperation with third party(ies) - development partners. Gradually, however, we witnessed the changing face of development assistance and the sources “the donors.” Traditionally, much of the aid and development support has been coming from developed country’s sources. Over the last few decades, however, there has been a gradual change in the trend whereby, developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, Turkey and others taking a leading role. Consequently, a broader framework for Development Cooperation which sees developing countries has taken more prominent role in the development assistance line up. Against this background the Multilateral Department in the MOFAIC of the Government of Botswana, has decided to develop a South-South and Trilateral Cooperation Strategy to identify and package areas where Botswana needs collaboration and assistance, mainly in terms of experience sharing and learning from other countries of the South as well as to package and deliver its own innovative practices in areas where Botswana has managed to obtain international best practice standards to share with other countries in the developing world. The strategy paper development will be done in close coordination and support of the UNDP country office to ensure successful experience in supporting the capacity development of the government in developing and establishing South-South Cooperation systems are harnessed and linked with the Africa Regional Project on SSC. |
