• by IPS Correspondents (geneva)
• Monday, November 22, 2010
• Inter Press Service

The Third Annual Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) opened Monday in Geneva with more than 400 delegates from over 40 countries gathered to showcase innovative solutions to poverty challenges that have been created in developing countries.

'The South is a font of ideas and actions that are helping to tackle the major challenges of our day,' U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon said in his statement to the opening session of the Expo, which will continue until Nov. 26. 'The challenges are clear, but they can be overcome. Cooperation is essential,' he said.

'The more developing countries can share lessons about what works, from micro-finance to cash transfer programmes, the more we can advance,' Ban stressed.

An estimated 1.75 billion people in more than 100 countries still live in extreme poverty, according to an Oxford University and U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) study he cited.

Michele Bachelet, U.N. Women's executive director and former president of Chile, said that developing countries do not need to depend on industrialised countries to solve their problems. 'Innovative development solutions are coming from the South,' she said. 'The solutions are where the challenges are,' she explained.

The GSSD Expo is being hosted this year by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and is organised in conjunction with more than 20 U.N. agencies and partners.

The theme of the GSSD Expo is 'Solutions, Solutions, Solutions!' as a concrete response to the strong commitment made by the Secretary-General and the UNDP Administrator to help the global south realise its shared aspirations of achieving sustainable and equitable development.

This year the Expo comes as immediate follow-up to the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit where the U.N. Development Group committed to identifying concrete solutions in order to form an MDG Acceleration Compact that aligns and focuses stakeholders and resources to reduce poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy by 2015.

'In the solution forums, panels and workshops there is the opportunity for us to come together to share experiences, expertise and hard-won knowledge to begin the process of cooperation, whether it is on a South-South or North-South- South basis,' said Josephine Ojiambo, president of the U.N. General Assembly High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation.

There is no shortage of Southern development solutions in almost every country in the global South, irrespective of the size and level of development, said Yiping Zhou, director of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation in UNDP. 'Many of those solutions are homegrown, while others result from decades of assistance from traditional donors.'

A host of complex challenges, including persistent poverty, energy and food scarcity, climate change, global health pandemics, and a lack of social protections for vulnerable populations are being addressed during the GSSD Expo - by solution providers who have implemented successful solutions on the ground.

The GSSD Expo is not a place for discussing problems or offering textbook scenarios, according to the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation. Its sole purpose is to enable developing countries and their development partners, including donor agencies, organisations of the United Nations system, and the private sector and civil society organisations, to regularly and systematically showcase evidence-based development solutions that can be scaled up or adapted.

Since its inception in 2008, the GSSD Expo has featured contributions from hundreds of partner countries, U.N. agencies, private sector enterprises and civil society organisations. The six thematic areas of GSSD Expo 2010 are: Social Protection and Decent Work; Food Security; Climate Change and Environment; HIV/AIDS; Global Health; and Education.

While much of the world has faced an uphill battle to meet the Millennium Development Goals, several countries of the South have achieved major successes. 'No region of the world has a monopoly of wisdom or appropriate solutions,' said Juan Somavia, ILO director-general, at the opening.

The share of global GDP generated by low and middle income countries has grown from 15 to 25 percent over the last 50 years, according to UNDP estimates, and analysts predict that emerging markets will outperform developed markets during the next decade.

Celso Amorim, minister of external relations of Brazil, explained that the biggest challenge surrounding South-South cooperation was the 'mental barriers and prejudices' linked to this issue. He added that South-South cooperation is part of an 'attitude that has to do with trade, investment and politics'.

'South-South cooperation is no longer just a hot topic. It is real development in action,' said Zhou.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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