The multiple, concurrent crises of climate change, the financial crisis, food insecurity and the like only serve to heighten concerns regarding global health. As the world has become increasingly interconnected, the spread of disease across borders is an ever larger threat to global health. These borderless threats require cooperation and coordination among countries and present an ideal setting for the implementation of South-South strategies. This Solution Exchange Forum will feature innovative policy and institutional responses, effective and practical solutions and outreach and delivery mechanisms for dealing with health pandemics, neglected diseases and access to health information.

The Forum will feature 4-5 case presentations relevant to the above themes. The featured South-South development solutions can take many forms, including Southern-grown solutions, South-South partnership solutions, North-South-South triangular partnership solutions, and public-private partnership solutions, and should all have the potential for South-South learning to scale-up their development impact.

Each presentation of an SSDS should also show its direct contribution, in concrete terms and, ideally, supported by quantifiable data, to one or more of the MDGs. Some of the more specific indicators might include, but are not limited to: the number of jobs created, local income generated, social infrastructure developed, improvements in education and health, contributions to improving the environment and addressing climate change, and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women.

All SSDSs to be showcased should answer such questions as: why a specific solution worked in a given environment; what kinds of benefits it generated and whether those benefits were equitably shared; what made it sustainable; whether the same SSDS has been adapted to a different country context and what lessons were learned from that experience; what minimal requirements are necessary in order for another country to implement the SSDS; what kind of technical support the SSDS-originating country might provide; and, last but not least, what a traditional donor, multilateral organization, or private-sector or civil society organization could contribute to support mutual learning and its scaling-up.