Why don’t partners in South-South cooperation care about the aid
effectiveness agenda? Why don’t they adhere to the commitments embodied in the
Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action? These
are questions I frequently hear.
Perhaps it is time to think anew.
At the Global Partnerships for Effective Development Cooperation meeting
in Mexico last month, we heard once again that South-South cooperation is a
common endeavor of peoples and countries of the South, born out of shared
experiences and sympathies, based on their common objectives and solidarity,
and guided by the principles of respect for national sovereignty and ownership,
free from any conditionalities.
Developing countries are indeed reshaping the international cooperation
landscape with new principles, ideas and practices. The environment in which South-South cooperation is
currently implemented has changed significantly since the 1970s, when the basic
institutional arrangements governing it were put in place. In the 1970s, the
vast majority of developing countries were underdeveloped and heavily dependent
on developed countries for the transfer of knowledge and technology. Over the
past two decades, a number of developing countries have achieved comparatively
high levels of development, underpinned by an expanding middle class and
scientific and technological expertise, and are demonstrating many competencies
that are contributing to higher growth, economic resilience and other positive
trends in the global South.
These developments have
accentuated the possibilities for promoting more intensive forms of cooperation
among developing countries in pursuit of their national development plans and
internationally agreed development goals, such as the Millennium Development
Goals and the post-2015 development agenda. It is within this context that the High Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, the governing body for South-South Cooperation at the UN comprised
of all members of the United Nations Development Program, meets this week to
review what South-South has achieved and how its implementation on the ground
can be strengthened.
Read the IBSA Fund overview of project portfolio 2014 hereSo far, the IBSA Fund has contributed with more than US$27 million to 21 projects in 13 countries. In Haiti, the fund helped build a waste collection system in the neighborhood of Carrefour Feuilles in the capital Port-au-Prince. The venture employs 385 neighborhood residents, including 207 women. More than 150,000 people benefit from improved sanitation and reduced flood risk from garbage-clogged canals. The IBSA Fund also helped Guinea-Bissau to train over 4,500 farmers (half of them women) in improved techniques of rice cultivation, and citrus fruit and mango production, contributing to income generation and poverty alleviation in the country. In Palestine, the Cultural and Hospital Center for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the Gaza strip was entirely rebuilt, and in Burundi the revamped Center for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS now enables around 39,000 consultations per year.
Ten years since its establishment in 2004, the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation (IBSA Fund) is a good example of how South-South cooperation is delivering results on the ground. With just USD3 million per year, the IBSA Fund is very tiny when compared to other development cooperation initiatives (the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, for instance, has invested more than USD20 billion since 2002). Beyond the financial contribution though, the Fund aims to put the principles of cooperation and solidarity in practice and set a new paradigm for development cooperation.
As emerging economies that still have their own
development requirements, IBSA members are determined to distance themselves as
far as possible from traditional donor-recipient relationships by supporting replicable and
scalable projects based on the capabilities available in the IBSA
countries themselves and on their own national experiences and capacity
building expertise. And the results are out there.
The fund operates through a demand driven approach and is
open to all developing countries. Governments requesting support from the fund
initiate discussions with IBSA representatives worldwide. They submit proposals
to the IBSA Focal Points in the three capitals for approval. Proposals that
receive favorable indication are taken to the IBSA Fund Board of Directors,
comprised of the IBSA Deputy-Permanent Representatives for the United Nations. The
Board meets every four months to develop, monitor, analyze and approve project
documents. The United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation acts as the
fund manager and the Board of Directors’ secretariat, intermediates the contact
with potential executing agencies, and facilitates project formulation and
implementation. IBSA projects are implemented through partnerships with local
governments, UNDP or national institutions to ensure it is locally owned and managed.
South-South principles also guide the (more or less objective) criteria to evaluate the proposals submitted to
the Fund, which include: the potential to reduce poverty, alignment with the
priorities of the recipient country, use of the capabilities available in the
IBSA countries and their successful experiences, sustainability, expected
impact, possibility that the initiative be replicated, innovation, and project
completion within a 12-14 months timeframe. Funding
is available for projects in agriculture, education, energy, environment and
climate change, health, human settlements, public administration, revenue
administration, science and technology, and social development, and other areas
where IBSA countries have developed national
expertise and according to the demand of the
partner.
Under the spirit of mutual
benefits, the IBSA Fund also supports the development agenda of the member
countries themselves. India, Brazil and South Africa may agree with their partners to terminate certain
existing bilateral programs and attach them to the development fund, to form a
larger initiative for cooperation with other IBSA members. Thus, IBSA members and partners could benefit from economies of scale, increased knowledge exchanges, and strengthened
global impact when using the Fund. As other South-South funds and facilities are created both within UN agencies and International Development Banks, it would be helpful to conduct a benchmarking exercise to identify standards or 'best practices' to enhance design and performance.
North-South, South-South, South-North, East-East…we
all care about effectiveness. We also care about how the term can be framed to allow both accountability and innovation, as well as results. Would this be the IBSA Fund’s main lesson for the
decade to come?
