Within the framework of the mandates of the Latin American Council, the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) has held since 1987 the Meeting of International Cooperation Directors of its Member States, based on the fundamental axes of action, to debate, exchange and consolidate proposals that contribute to the integration and exchange processes and, above all, to intra-regional and inter-regional cooperation. Assuming this space as a platform to encourage the exchange of ideas, experiences and best practices in the thematic areas of relevance in the agenda of cooperation and development aid.

At present, this meeting space is a relevant forum to contribute to the efforts of the United Nations System aimed at strengthening the implementation of the 2030 Agenda through South-South and Triangular Cooperation. While it is true that the COVID 19 pandemic has marked the actions in the last three years, it is necessary to insist and continue activating the mechanisms that contribute to further progress in the fulfilment of the SDGs from the vision and importance of social, economic and environmental aspects.

For the year 2022, the Meeting of International Cooperation Directors is promoting the thematic area “Innovative mechanisms for South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) in Latin America and the Caribbean.” In the current geopolitical context, after the continuous efforts to overcome the COVID 19 pandemic and the situations of armed conflicts that have implications that directly affect the well-being of the world population, affecting the economic and social development of our countries, the initiatives and actions in the field of cooperation and integration must be maintained, strengthened and constantly innovated.  

This event is co-sponsored by the Perez-Guerrero Trust Fund (PGTF) of the Group of 77 and the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development of the Dominican Republic. Therefore, it is a propitious occasion to incorporate specialised agencies, organisations and institutes whose lines of action include SSTC as an axis of articulation to achieve the effective integration of our region.  

What is known today as South-South Cooperation stems from the adoption of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (BAPA) in Argentina on 18 September 1978.

In 2018, the BAPA marked 40 years since its adoption, which prompted the holding of the Second High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA+40) in 2019 in Argentina, with the central theme of the discussion being how South-South Cooperation and Triangular Cooperation represent an opportunity to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Many organisations promote the SSTC, from the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), which states[1] that it is a broad framework of collaboration among countries of the South in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains. Involving two or more developing countries, it can take place on a bilateral, regional, intraregional or interregional basis. Developing countries share knowledge, skills, expertise and resources to meet their development goals through concerted efforts. Recent developments in South-South cooperation have taken the form of increased volume of South-South trade, South-South flows of foreign direct investment, movements towards regional integration, technology transfers, sharing of solutions and experts, and other forms of exchanges.

It also notes that Triangular Cooperation is a collaboration in which traditional donor countries and multilateral organisations facilitate South-South initiatives through the provision of funding, training, management and technological systems as well as other forms of support.

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)[2] has also promoted the SSTC for more than four decades, since 1979, when the Committee on Cooperation among Developing Countries and Regions was established. The goal was to examine the intra-regional and inter-regional cooperation activities carried out by the Secretariat of the Commission with a view to formulating the relevant support measures for the promotion of such cooperation.

Following resolution 58/220[3] on economic and technical cooperation among developing countries, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2003, developing countries and their partners were urged to intensify South-South cooperation, as it contributes to the achievement of internationally agreed development goals. For this reason, in 2004, countries decided to change the name of the Committee on Cooperation among Developing Countries and Regions to the Committee on South-South Cooperation and, inter alia, requested that ECLAC's strategic approaches to international development cooperation, including South-South, North-South and multilateral cooperation, be revamped.

In 2019, the final document of the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA+40)[4] reaffirmed the key role of the entities of the United Nations system in promoting South-South and Triangular Cooperation for sustainable development, in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Accordingly, ECLAC’s Committee on South-South Cooperation was renamed the Regional Conference on South-South Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean and became a subordinate body of the Commission that will contribute to the support of Member States in South-South and Triangular Cooperation initiatives.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) through the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) defines Official Development Assistance (ODA)[5] as government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries. It excludes loans and credits for military purposes. Aid can be provided bilaterally, from donor to recipient, or channelled through a multilateral development agency such as the United Nations or the World Bank. Aid includes grants, “soft” loans and the provision of technical assistance.

Up to 2017, ODA[6] was defined by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) as “those flows to countries and territories on the DAC List of ODA Recipients and to multilateral institutions which are:

1. provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies; and
2. each transaction of which:
   • is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective; and
   • is concessional in character and conveys a grant element of at least 25 per cent (calculated at a rate of discount of 10 per cent).

As of 2018, this definition was adjusted as follows: Official development assistance flows are defined[7] as those flows to countries and territories on the DAC List of ODA Recipients and to multilateral development institutions which are:

1. provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies; and
2. each transaction of which:
3. is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective; and
4. is concessional in character. In DAC statistics, this implies a grant element of at least
   • 45 per cent in the case of bilateral loans to the official sector of LDCs and other LICs (calculated at a rate of discount of 9 per cent).
   • 15 per cent in the case of bilateral loans to the official sector of LMICs (calculated at a rate of discount of 7 per cent).
   • 10 per cent in the case of bilateral loans to the official sector of UMICs (calculated at a rate of discount of 6 per cent).
   • 10 per cent in the case of loans to multilateral institutions (calculated at a rate of discount of 5 per cent for global institutions and multilateral development banks, and 6 per cent for other organisations, including sub-regional organisations).

The OECD maintains a list of developing countries and territories; only aid to these countries counts as ODA. The list is updated periodically and currently contains more than 140 countries or territories and has been dominated by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, as well as a high percentage of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A long-standing UN target is that developed countries should devote 0.7% of their gross national income to ODA. During the period 2015-2021, this target was met by Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany and Turkey.[8]

It should be noted that the international community maintains the premise that all countries should make the necessary efforts to reach the proposed target of 0.7% of GNI, as reflected in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) for financing development and in the Sustainable Development Goals target.

Another international body working to promote South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) is the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), which provides an important follow-up report on the relations among activities within the framework of this international cooperation body, not only in Ibero-America, but also at the global level.

The latest SEGIB 2020 report states that multilateralism and truly horizontal cooperation must be the backbone of a global joint effort. This is a spirit that permeates one of the tools available to us for this purpose: South-South and Triangular Cooperation. For this reason, initiatives such as the Report on South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Ibero-America 2020, which we present here, allow us to learn from what has already been done and demonstrate the extent to which our countries have already been cooperating, in form and substance, in the generation and joint strengthening of capacities that are now critical for tackling the pandemic.[9]

South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) in Latin America and the Caribbean

The latest report published by SEGIB in 2020[10] shows the data collected, which may serve as input for the exchange of experiences, lessons learned and proposals to improve the relationship between our countries, as well as those nations outside our region with a high vocation for cooperation.

The following chart shows the evolution of the participation of projects and actions in the field of South-South Cooperation.

As can be seen in the chart, the two values take opposite trajectories, inferring a progressive displacement of actions in favour of projects. Actions continue to be implemented because they are very necessary for the incursion of many countries into Bilateral SSC, but countries are increasingly showing a greater capacity to focus their efforts on the implementation of projects, a tool on which the region relies in 90% of the exchanges in which it participates.

Triangular Cooperation (TC) is the other substantial element of cooperation and exchange that is presented by the SEGIB-EU project to better understand Triangular Cooperation and to provide more evidence and rigorous information on its magnitude, scope and effects.

In summary, the chart shows the importance that States are giving to their participation in cooperation through projects. While initiatives are important, projects form a larger framework for the generation of knowledge, experiences and best practices.

Latin American and Caribbean countries have shown that, despite their heterogeneity and the challenges ahead, they have many experiences to share in favour of sustainable development and in the universal implementation of the 2030 Agenda, as evidenced in depth in the SEGIB reports.

This South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean has been built on shared affinities and experiences, based on common objectives, inspired by the principles of horizontality, consensus, equity, solidarity, respect for sovereignty, as well as national contexts and priorities, free of any conditionality. Both modalities stand out as a necessary complement to increase the range of successful experiences, as well as to strengthen and build capacities, generate knowledge, regional integration, and to design public policies for equality and sustainability within the framework of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the SDGs.

International cooperation for the 2030 Agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean 

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was proposed as a global transformative agenda, which integrates the social, economic and environmental dimensions of development as fundamental pillars. It is important to update the institutional practices that structure the international cooperation system in order to adjust them to the new global regulatory framework represented by the 2030 Agenda. Only this will contribute to the necessary establishment of a comprehensive and inclusive system that maintains the focus on those countries with the greatest challenges and the least capacity to mobilise domestic resources, without excluding any country in its transition to sustainable development.

In line with this view, it is essential to close the gaps between discourse and practice in order to move towards an inclusive international cooperation system, based on the 2030 Agenda, and which accompanies and encourages all countries - according to their diverse trajectories, capacities and needs - to move steadily towards sustainable development.

In this regard, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), together with the European Commission, the Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other partners, have elaborated the concept of “Development in Transition.”

The Latin American Economic Outlook 2019[11] presents a new strategy called "Development in Transition" (DiT) to support Latin America and the Caribbean's (LAC) progress towards inclusive and sustainable development. This represents an opportunity to advance towards the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) by rethinking the concept of development, the strategies that countries should adopt and the role of international cooperation in facilitating these efforts. Faced with a changing context at both national and global levels, the DiT highlights the need to enhance domestic institutional capacities and adopt more innovative modalities of international development cooperation. This should support both national development objectives and international efforts to promote regional and global public goods.

In this regard, ECLAC’s General Secretariat indicated the following: "the application of the concept of Development in Transition, in order to facilitate the access of LAC countries to the OECD's initial proposal, makes it urgent to reconsider the criteria for measuring and classifying development, as well as to suspend the "graduations" of middle-income countries during the pandemic. “There is a need for a multidimensional vulnerability index for middle-income countries, especially Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The 'graduation' of Official Development Assistance (ODA) cannot be tantamount to exclusion and fall into cooperation limbo. It is about moving towards a different, more horizontal, peer-to-peer approach to international cooperation. South-South cooperation teaches us great lessons in this regard."[12]

By 2030, Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to remain one of the most urbanised regions in the world. This rapid process, however, poses challenges of mobility, infrastructure, food and inequality. Therefore, efforts to respect the environment are essential and should increase the response capacity of subnational and local governments.  

In a region characterised by heavy dependence on the extraction of natural resources, the options for achieving sustainable development are closely linked to the global challenge of decoupling growth from the emission of greenhouse gases and other pollutants, which threaten the very basis of life and economic livelihoods for future generations. It is important, in this regard, that the current slowdown in growth does not lead to the attraction of the kind of investment that undermines already precarious national environmental regimes.

Based on the above, the region has international organisations and institutions that work in favour of cooperation and best practices in line with the care and preservation of the environment. Deepening the issues of agriculture and food security, as well as renewed issues such as the bioeconomy, could represent an opportunity to maintain the efforts of integration and consolidation of the cooperation ties that have characterised our region.

[1] https://unsouthsouth.org/about/about-sstc/

[2] https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/48003/S2100494_es.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[3] See [online] https://undocs.org/es/A/RES/58/220

[4] See [online] https://undocs.org/es/A/RES/73/291.

[5] https://data.oecd.org/oda/net-oda.htm#indicator-chart

[6] https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/officialdevelopmentassistancedefinitionandcoverage.htm#ODA2017

[7] https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/officialdevelopmentassistancedefinitionandcoverage.htm#ODA2017

[8] OECD (2022), Net ODA (indicator). doi: 10.1787/33346549-en (Accessed on 04 August 2022)

[9] SEGIB (2021). Informe de la Cooperación Sur-Sur y Triangular en Iberoamérica 2020, Madrid.

[10] SEGIB (2021). Informe de la Cooperación Sur-Sur y Triangular en Iberoamérica 2020, Madrid. 

[11] https://doi.org/10.1787/g2g9ff1a-es.

[12] https://www.cepal.org/es/comunicados/cepal-pide-reconsiderar-criterios-medicion-clasificacion-desarrollo-asi-como-suspender

The project aims to:

1. Present an overview of the main initiatives developed by specialised international organisations and governments in Latin America and the Caribbean to strengthen the regional architecture in South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC);
2. Present and promote an institutional framework and guiding principles that contribute to a greater involvement of the private sector in regional strategies of Triangular Cooperation (TC); and
3. Disseminate and exchange best practices regarding the diversification of funding sources for

The Meeting of Cooperation Directors for LAC will be held on 8 and 9 February 2023 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Modality: This meeting will be conducted in a hybrid modality (face-to-face and virtual).

Participants: LAC cooperation directors, cooperation agencies operating in LAC, specialists and researchers in the area of South-South and Triangular Cooperation. 

Face-to-face: The event will be held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Organizing institutions: Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy and Planning of the Dominican Republic 

Languages: Spanish with simultaneous interpretation into English.

Thursday, 8 February 2023