PRESS RELEASE

Media Advisory 

Global South-South Development EXPO 2011
Worldwide Stakeholders Coming Together to Showcase Southern-Grown Development Solutions

NEW YORK: 8 November 2011 - With a motto of “Solutions, Solutions, Solutions!” the Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo), a UN system-wide forum developed by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation to showcase successful Southern development solutions, will be hosted at the headquarters of The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, Italy on 5–9 December 2011.

Rather than simply discussing the challenges faced by the global South or debating generalized prescriptions for overcoming them, the GSSD Expo provides a forum for developing countries and their development partners, including donor agencies, UN organizations, and private-sector and civil society organizations, to showcase their evidence-based South-South development solutions.

Driven by the strong desire of the international community to continue to share and exchange South-South development solutions, the GSSD Expo 2011 will feature a wide-range of activities showcasing shining examples of Southern successes in dealing with the complex cross-cutting development challenges that arise from food insecurity.

Building on past successes the GSSD Expo 2011 will kick-off with a High-level segment featuring: Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz Al- Nasser of Qatar, President of UN General Assembly's Sixty-Sixth Session; Ambassador Macharia Kamau of Kenya, President of the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation; Ambassador Jorge Arguello of Argentina, Chairman of the Group of 77; Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO; Kanayo Nwanze, President of IFAD; Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of WFP; Getachew Engida, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO; David Nabarro, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition; J. Brian Atwood, Chair of the OECD/DAC; and Ahmad Modamed Ali, President of the Islamic Development Bank Group.

Following the High-level segment a Leadership Round Table, moderated by Zeinab Badawi of the BBC, will feature an interactive dialogue with renowned leaders in South-South and triangular cooperation: Yuan Longping, Researcher, Hybride Rice, China; Rajendra S. Paroda, Former Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR); Esther Penunia, Secretary General of the Asian Farmers Association; and Monty Jones, Chairperson of the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR) and CEO of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).

The GSSD Expo will feature Solution Exchange Forums on: Agriculture and Capacity Development; Social Protection and Agriculture; Climate Change, Environment and Agriculture; Nutrition and HIV/AIDS; Global Health and Agriculture; and Renewable Energy and Agribusiness.

Since its inception in 2008, the GSSD Expo has been a strong symbol of the United Nation’s commitment to promoting South-South cooperation. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark have both stressed the importance of South- South cooperation in helping the global South achieve its many goals, chief amongst them the Millennium Development Goals. “The growing trend among Southern countries to look not only to reducing poverty within their own borders but also to raise the development prospects of other developing countries is exhibited across a range of countries, including strong emerging economies and other South- South pivotal countries,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Borne out of the High-level UN Conference on South-South Cooperation and the call within the Nairobi Outcome Document, the GSSD Expo, as part of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation’s 3-in-1 multilateral support architecture, is facilitating closer links and sharing among Member States and the United Nations development system.

While much of the world has faced difficulty in their efforts to achieve the MDGs, several countries of the South have seen major successes in realizing achievements in reducing extreme poverty, improving school enrolment and child health, and expanding access to clean water, malaria control and HIV/AIDS treatment. The GSSD Expo, through highlighting the innovative solutions that have yielded these advances, seeks to provide a roadmap for Southern countries that are in comparable circumstances and face similar challenges in the hopes of creating a stronger South in the future.

For more information, please contact: Rogel Nuguid, Chief of Staff, Special Unit for South-South Cooperation Tel: (212) 906-6944; E-mail: rogel.nuguid@undp.org; www.southsouthexpo.org

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PRESS RELEASE

Member States Discuss How to Scale Up South-South Successes

NEW YORK: 28 October 2011 - The South’s strong economic performance has enabled Southern countries to make significant progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and during the ongoing economic downturn that plagues much of the world’s economy, emerging economies are paying an important role in driving global economic growth.

It is now widely recognized that the countries of the South can make significant contributions, particularly to themselves, said Ambassador Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of Kenya to the U.N. and President of the General Assembly High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation, during his welcome remarks at Thursday’s Biannual Member States Meeting on South-South and Triangular Cooperation, hosted by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation/UNDP.

The meeting was convened in order to open a discussion among Member States focusing on how they could work together to further strengthen the work of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation in its important role as advocator and promoter of South-South and triangular cooperation. Over 30 Member States participated in Thursday’s discussion.

Delegates discussions focused on: How to broaden cooperation and maximize its benefits, through increased South- South collaborations and further engagement of Northern and multilateral partners through triangular cooperation; How the South could strengthen its voice within the U.N. system to ensure South-South cooperation and Southern concerns are mainstreamed and that the system is responsive; How to operationalize the Nairobi Outcome Document; and, How to mobilize meaningful resources for the Special Unit.

A key challenge posed by Kamau to the gathered delegations was how they could work together as well as with U.N. system agencies, especially UN/UNDP country teams, to increase the sharing, transfer and scaling up of successful Southern solutions to shared development challenges.

“This discussion is very relevant in the context of the current development landscape - within which development actors are becoming increasingly aware that knowledge and technical expertise that originate from countries in the South, are often most suitable to meeting the development challenges faced by the South,” said Rebeca Grynspan, UNDP Associate Administrator, who co-chaired the meeting with Kamau.

The delegate of Costa Rica requested that the Special Unit put together a presentation of the different possibilities for a country to share information about specific solutions to specific problems.

In February, Grynspan challenged the Special Unit to move beyond promoting information-sharing, and to instead create a transactional web-enabled environment that would empower and engage Member States, multilateral institutions, and all other critical development partners to exchange knowledge and solutions to scale up their development impact.

The Unit has taken the challenge to heart and has developed an online enabling environment that is poised to provide a new and powerful space for critical interaction. It includes, for example, a Directors-General space that enables DGs and heads of development agencies from all countries to discuss and exchange ideas and innovations.

The Biannual Member States Meeting on South-South and Triangular Cooperation will continue to be held regularly. However, once the Special Unit’s new interactive global and multilateral South-South and Triangular Cooperation Support Architecture website is unveiled in November Member States will be placed in constant contact, and enabled to communicate with each other in real time on issues pertaining to South-South cooperation.

“South-South cooperation is happening. It is transformative,” Kamau stressed. “We must be careful not to be left behind.” 

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