Sharing the Asian Experience for South-South Cooperation in Latin America

On August 30 and 31, an international seminar titled “What to Discuss for South-South and Triangular Cooperation? Comparing Experiences in Latin America, Asia, and Africa” was organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. At the “Experience in Asia and Africa” session, Senior Research Fellow Akio Hosono gave a presentation on the current situation and characteristics of South-South cooperation (where a developing country assists another developing country) in Asia, and JICA’s involvement.

During the Q&A after the presentation, a lively discussion was held among participants with questions focusing on issues such as how South-South cooperation in Asia seemed to be more practical, aiming more for regional integration than Latin America’s, and why this was so.

Latin American countries are seeking to establish effective South-South and triangular cooperation, but as they know little of Asia’s experience and current situation, sharing this information at the session was very meaningful. In addition, JICA’s partnership program with key Asian countries was highly regarded by both Latin American participants and international organizations.

Attending the seminar, Hosono commented that “Both South-South and triangular cooperation help a developing country share its recent experience and expertise with its own development issues with less developed countries. They should contribute significantly to fostering effective social and economic development and to capacity development. JICA-RI would like to conduct further research on these South-South and triangular cooperation characteristics.

Latin American countries are currently supporting Haiti reconstruction using South-South cooperation scheme with the active assistance of JICA. At JICA-RI, Hosono initiated the “Revisiting the Capacity Development Approach through Comparative Case Analysis” project as head researcher.