Positive Reviews and Expectations for JICA's Efforts at High-Level Meeting on South-South and Triangular Cooperation

On November 23, the "High-Level Meeting on South-South and Triangular Cooperation," co-hosted by JICA, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Special Unit for South-South Cooperation, and the International Labor Organization (ILO), was held in Geneva, Switzerland. The meeting aimed to provide an opportunity to discuss the role of South-South and triangular cooperation in promoting capacity development (CD) and sharing good practices among donors. The attendees included officials from developing countries and donors involved in South-South cooperation. From JICA-RI, senior research fellow Akio Hosono and research associate Shunichiro Honda participated the conference to share their research results.

The high-level meeting was positioned as a pre-event for the "Global South-South Expo," a promotional event for South-South cooperation. The Expo, organized annually in December by the United Nations, is an event that commemorates the "Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries" adopted in December 1978.

At the meeting, officials from developing countries pointed out of the many advantages of South-South and triangular cooperation. One of them noted that "In addition to high levels of effectiveness and efficiency, it applies knowledge, experience, and approaches that are based on the history, politics, economy, and society of each implementing country." Meanwhile, for increasing effectiveness, others stressed that it is necessary to organize information on things such as data on the specializations and expertise of each implementing country in a more unified manner, on top of strengthening the aid-receiving capacity of recipient countries." Many officials from developing countries voiced appreciation for JICA's prior efforts in triangular cooperation, pointing out the great value of JICA’s wealth of experience and high levels of expertise as a pioneer and major promoting organization of triangular cooperation.

Reflecting on the meeting, Dr. Hosono says: "With the IBSA group (India, Brazil, and South Africa) announcing their plans to collaborate in South-South cooperation, and an official from the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation (ABC) declaring their intent to strengthen assistance to Africa, I have high expectations for the progress [of understating on CD]." He adds: “South-South cooperation was taken positively by many participants at the meeting, thanks to the specific case studies to demonstrate its effectiveness in promoting CD, I feel strongly that Japan has a prominent role in promoting South-South and triangular cooperation, and that JICA-RI's research on CD will contribute greatly to future discussions."