This Report is authored by Dr. Hany Besada, Senior Research and Programme Advisor & Senior Research Coordinator, United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC); Dr. Xiaolin Wang, Professor and Deputy Dean, Institute for Six-Sector Economy, Fudan University and Dr. Qianqian Liu, Deputy Director General, Finance Centre for South-South Cooperation.
On 19 March 2019, the South-South Cooperation in the Digital World Conference was held in Argentina alongside the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation and the 40th Anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA+40). The 2018 South-South Cooperation report South-South Cooperation in a Digital World, jointly prepared by the Finance Center for South-South Cooperation (FCSSC) and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), was released at the conference. Thereafter, numerous partners initiated various initiatives to help advance this agenda. Therefore, FCSSC and UNOSSC continued to focus on the topic, and to dig even deeper, and chose South- South and Triangular Cooperation in a Digital World: New Impetus and New Approaches as the theme for our 2020/2021 report.
Excitingly, Southern countries are at the forefront of South-South and Triangular Cooperation and the digital world has created new dynamics, which have enriched the knowledge and experience of inter- national cooperation and development. Digital technology has exerted an increasingly wide-spread and far-reaching influence on South-South Cooperation. The positive influence of digital technology on the economic and social development of Southern countries in key areas such as agriculture and food safety, climate change, natural disaster prevention and reduction, finance, education, health care and financ- ing is becoming more and more significant. Furthermore, innovative development models keep springing up in Southern countries. These advances are inspiring new concepts of how to push further ahead with South-South and Triangular Cooperation.
The execution unit of this 2020/2021 report is the Institute for Six-Sector Economy at Fudan University, with funding from the South South Education Foundation. The three Co-Editors-in-Chief of the report are: Professor Wang Xiaolin, Professor and Deputy Dean, Institute for Six-Sector Economy and Professor at School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University; Dr. Hany Besada, Senior Research and Programme Advisor at UNOSSC; and Dr. Liu Qianqian, Deputy Director-General of FCSSC. Working with FCSSC and UNOSSC, the Co-Editors-in-Chief joined hands to select the topics of this report and recommended and organized accomplished experts as chapter authors, which, by their joint efforts, has materialized and is presented here to our readers. Particular thanks are due to Professor Zhang Laiwu, President of the Institute for Six-Sector Economy, Fudan University, and his team for their support in conducting the present research project.
The theme of this report is prospective, and its content is challenging. In writing it, our group of experts overcame many difficulties, especially the impact imposed by the COVID-19 epidemic. Though the report still leaves some aspects to be desired, it includes abundant South-South digital technology cooperation cases, which gives it added value to the knowledge of South-South Cooperation.