South-South Cooperation

What is South-South and Triangular Cooperation?

South-South Cooperation is a term historically used to describe the exchange of resources, technology, and knowledge between developing countries, and is being promoted as an essential cross-cutting mechanism designed to deliver capacity building and technology support activities in developing countries and regions of the South. South-South cooperation can also be identified as a complement to North-South cooperation to enhance technical, financial, scientific and technological exchanges and innovations for development.

Triangular cooperation involves two or more developing countries in collaboration with a third party, typically a developed country government or organization, contributing to the exchanges with its own know-how and resources.

Why is it important?

Biodiversity is a key economic, financial, cultural, and strategic asset for developing countries, and is critical for economic and social development as well as poverty reduction. The loss of biodiversity undermines the possibilities for sustained growth of developing countries.

Considering that the 2010 target to achieve a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss was not met and that the majority of the world’s biodiversity resides in the global “South”, it is obvious that developing countries are facing the serious challenge of sustainable development.

Traditional North-South cooperation has continuously been used in the efforts to cope with this crisis. However, the potential of developing countries has been growing rapidly by accumulating knowledge, experience and expertise on biodiversity in recent years. With this increased capacity, South-South cooperation can in many ways complement North-South exchanges with a more efficient use of resources. Under these circumstances, the Parties to the CBD have recognized the urgent need to enhance implementation of the Convention through South-South and triangular cooperation, and welcomed the Multi-Year Plan of Action for South-South Cooperation on Biodiversity for Development (adopted by the Group of 77 and China at the South-South Cooperation Forum held on 17 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan) as an important contribution to the implementation of the 2011-2020 Strategic Plan of the CBD (Decision X/23).