South-South Champions: Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP

 The 62 member States and Associate members of ESCAP have given us explicit mandates to promote South-South and Triangular Cooperation. For example, Commission resolution 75/3 requests ESCAP to convene regional forums where developing countries can exchange experiences and coordinate their South-South and triangular cooperation initiatives, whereas resolution 77/1 reaffirms the role of the regional commissions in supporting North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation initiatives to strengthen the relevant knowledge networks, partnerships, and technical and research capacity. To operationalize these resolutions, ESCAP, together UNOSSC Regional Office for Asia-Pacific and the Government of Thailand, inaugurated the Asia-Pacific Directors-General Forum in 2018 to share experiences, best practices and locally driven development approaches.

Going forward, ESCAP will focus on supporting member States in their COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts while ensuring that the progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is not only maintained but also accelerated. In this context, regional cooperation and partnerships, especially South-South Cooperation, will be of utmost importance to take on this challenge that no country can overcome alone.

SSC should be mainstreamed across all regional issues, especially those that are multi-sectoral and transboundary such as sustainable connectivity, environment and ecosystem challenges, and disaster risk reduction and management.

Hence, from the ESCAP point of view, I see a significant role for SSTC in all four priority action areas that frame our regional cooperation and socio-economic response to COVID-19:

1. 1. protecting people and enhancing resilience;
   2. supporting economic recovery;
   3. restoring supply chains and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); and
   4. protecting and restoring ecosystems.

To ensure a concerted regional approach for sustainable recovery from the crisis, SSC has become even more important in the work of ESCAP. It is used as one of the means to forge regional and subregional solutions across the four broad areas mentioned above by facilitating knowledge sharing and capacity-building initiatives among countries from the South.

The pandemic has shown the importance of accelerating action on SDGs in Asia and the Pacific, particularly in building resilience and addressing widening inequalities. It is also a reminder of the key role that the UN plays in bringing together countries and peoples for dialogue and joint action.

This message has been well-reflected in our value as the Regional Collaborative Platform in Asia and the Pacific, which allows the regional UN to come together, to coordinate actions and deliver tailor-made support where it is needed the most. The scale of today’s challenges requires unprecedented levels of collaboration among UN agencies, governments and partners. South-South and triangular cooperation is an avenue through which such cooperation becomes a reality.

UNOSSC can help advocate with a wider audience for the enforcement of multilateral agreements, norms and standards which help protect our people and economies from the damage of future crises.

We welcome UNOSSC’s deeper engagement in the work of the Regional Collaborative Platform.

Over the past few years, multilateral cooperation has come under tremendous stress. Global trade disputes and increasingly protectionist policies have hampered collective action to address global development challenges. Notwithstanding these trends, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have highlighted the interdependence of the prosperity and wellbeing of countries and peoples. It is now clear that no single country can address such crises alone. South-South, North-South and triangular cooperation are central to mitigating the immediate impacts of COVID-19 and ensuring sustainable recovery from the pandemic.

To this end, the UN’s convening power, its “honest broker” role in the facilitation of research and analysis, consensus building and knowledge exchange among countries of the region are key to addressing our shared challenges. The ability of the UN to craft a common vision for humanity, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is unparalleled.

Given the role of UNOSSC in promoting, coordinating and supporting South-South and triangular cooperation globally and within the United Nations system, UNOSSC could further strengthen collaboration with ESCAP by bringing the innovative solutions, knowledge and expertise of South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) development partners – including all UN entities, multilateral organizations and private sector entities in the Asia-Pacific region – to ESCAP member States. By leveraging the ESCAP convening power as the largest regional intergovernmental platform, UNOSSC could take a broker role to better connect our regional South-South and Triangular Cooperation initiatives with global deliberations and platforms.

It would also be fruitful for UNOSSC and ESCAP to explore the possibility of setting up a South-South cooperation trust fund that could facilitate more effective and comprehensive support to countries in our region through dedicated SSC projects and programmes. These initiatives need to take into account the knowledge and expertise of all development partners to foster sustainable development cooperation in a whole-of-system approach.

The countries of the South have contributed to more than half of the world’s growth in recent years. Innovative forms of knowledge exchange and technology transfer led by the South transform lives and promote sustainable development in the world. The role of effective multi-stakeholder partnerships in forging fruitful SSTCn must not go unrecognized. Effective multi-stakeholder partnerships involving governments, academia, civil society, private sector, development banks and multilateral organizations will broaden developing countries’ access to knowledge, experiences and innovative solutions and help achieve the SDGs.