AMANDA LUCEY is a senior researcher in the Conflict Management and Peace Building Division of the Institute for Security Studies. Amanda spent time in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she worked with MONUSCO as a political affairs officer, and has previously worked with the UNDP in South Sudan as a rule of law officer. Amanda tells Cafezinho about South Africa’s engagements with South Sudan as an example of South Africa’s experiences with South-South cooperation. Read Amanda's post in 80+ languages with the translator widget on the right side of the screen.
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South Africa is an important emerging southern actor and a strong proponent
of south-south cooperation (SSC). Yet, like many actors involved in these
spheres, little is known about South Africa’s activities to date. Cognisant of
the need to strengthen and deepen its engagements, South Africa is in the
process of setting up the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA), which will coordinate the country’s
outgoing development assistance. Research by the Institute for Security Studies
(ISS) on South Africa’s previous post-conflict development and peacebuilding capacity
provides initial pieces of evidence on SSC, including on South Africa’s
engagements in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Burundi
and South
Sudan. It also examines lessons learned for South Africa’s future
engagements. This post will consider South Africa’s engagements with South
Sudan as an example of South Africa’s experiences with south-south cooperation.
The lens through which South Africa views SSC can be gleaned through
its 2011 transparent
Paper on Foreign Policy, which emphasises south-south solidarity and
south-south trade. Although South Africa does not specify its definition of SSC
in any official documents, it has subscribed to five key fundamental principles
specified at the New
Delhi Conference of Southern Providers, namely non-conditionality, respect
for national sovereignty, national ownership and independence, mutual benefit
and demand driven engagements. South Africa also places its commitment firmly
on the African continent, particularly with regards to ensuring peace and
security. This commitment is demonstrated by the activities that South Africa has
sought to carry out in terms of development assistance, which have focussed on
African countries that is has historical ties with, including South Sudan.
To date, South Africa has mostly engaged on a bilateral and
trilateral basis on the continent. South Africa’s financing for such
arrangements has traditionally relied on the African Renaissance Fund, whose
value is worth around US$ 50,000 per annum and it is set to absorbed by SADPA. It
should be noted that South Africa is also beginning to explore furthering its
objectives through its unique positioning as the only African actor in
multilateral arrangements such as BRICS and IBSA, which could maximise South
Africa’s limited resources.
For example, South Sudan is one of the countries where South Africa
has been particularly involved, given particularly its long-standing connection
between South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) and South Sudan’s
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA/M), which draws on a common vision for a
‘democratic, non-racial and non-sexist society’ and shares a history of
exclusion and repression. South Africa’s
own transitional experience was thus believed to enable it to have a better
understanding of context and indeed, South Africa was often described by those
on the receiving end of South Africa’s assistance as the ‘big brother’.
In the past, South Africa engaged in SSC with South Sudan by carrying
out a number of capacity building activities, including the training
of diplomats by the Department for International Relations and Cooperation
(DIRCO), capacity building for the civil service conducted by the Public
Administration Leadership and Management Academy (PALAMA) and, in conjunction
with the University of South Africa (UNISA), the training
of more than 900 top and middle-level leaders and
managers shortly between 2005 and 2008. The notion that South Africa was more aptly placed to deliver
training given its understanding of context and similar experiences was seized
upon by trilateral arrangement engagements with some northern donors, such as
German funding for South Africa’s training of South Sudanese rule of law
officials and Norway’s funding for South African training of South Sudanese
police.
However, research by the ISS revealed that such engagements often lacked
monitoring and evaluation or any kind of follow-up, and were too short. The ISS
subsequently recommended that South Africa plan for longer-term engagements that
ensured a sustained presence in the country they were engaged with, and that
mechanisms needed to be put in place in order to ensure accountability not only
on the part of the recipient but also the provider.
South African interventions also often lacked coordination with
other South African government actors and showed the need for a coherent vision
and strategy. In other sectors, apart from its experiences
with UNISA, the South African government has done little to facilitate SSC
activities. There have been limited engagements by South African civil society
and some university exchanges between the universities of Juba and Fort Hare
but these have not been coordinated by the South African government. The same
applies to the business sector.
Most recently in South Sudan, South Africa has offered assistance to
South Sudanese prisons through the IBSA fund. The scheme offers training on
agricultural techniques and the development of infrastructure. The IBSA fund
has often been praised for having a significant impact and taking on more risky
projects than traditional donors. Despite it’s limited worth (US3 million) it
has won a number of awards and said to fill a niche gap by
carrying out activities that traditional donors would not pursue.
The South African example shows that SSC can complement traditional
forms of assistance and that it does have benefits. However, as demonstrated by
ISS research, there is still a need to develop mechanisms for strengthening
SSC. South Africa would do well to strengthen its vision and strategy, both
individually and jointly with other southern providers and there is a need to
begin to operationalise best practices by southern providers to ensure that
mistakes are not repeated. If SSC is to provide a viable alternative to
traditional cooperation, its advantages must be leveraged and its weaknesses
addressed. Providing evidence-based research on the area is the first step.
