{"id":17565,"date":"2015-11-23T18:30:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T18:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?p=17565"},"modified":"2018-04-22T12:03:17","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T16:03:17","slug":"enhancing-engagement-for-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/blog\/2015\/11\/enhancing-engagement-for-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Enhancing Engagement for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Role of the UN in Leveraging South-South Cooperation<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

New York, 23 November 2015 \u2013\u00a0<\/b>Representatives of Member States, the United Nations system and academia came together during a series of events Monday at United Nations Headquarters to discuss an array of emerging South-South approaches that offer significant support toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).<\/p>\n

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\u201cBrazil is convinced that South-South cooperation will have an invaluable role to play in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,\u201d said Ambassador Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, who chaired a Member States roundtable on the subject. \u201cWe need to respond to the ambitious set of Sustainable Development Goals and make the system fit for purpose to achieve this new universal agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is clarity on the political principles of South-South cooperation. What is needed now is for us to make South-South cooperation more effective on the ground,\u201d said Mr. Jorge Chediek, Director of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), who chaired a panel discussion titled \u2018Alternative Models of Development Cooperation\u2019 on enhancing engagement for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. \u201cThis requires establishing metrics, measuring South-South impact, addressing gaps and defining South-South strategies around the sustainable development agenda,\u201d Mr. Chediek said.<\/p>\n

The two events were co-organized by the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR)<\/a> in response to nine policy briefs commissioned by UNU-CPR on the role of South-South cooperation post-2015. The event chaired by the Ambassador of Brazil provided a venue for the authors of the briefs to have a frank discussion with Member States about what they see as the role of the UN in supporting and strengthening new forms of cooperation. The event chaired by the Director of UNOSSC brought the authors together with representatives from the UN Development System and other UN bodies to discuss key areas where the UN family needs to better leverage South-South cooperation for effective development.<\/p>\n

The UNU-CPR policy briefs explore the development cooperation models of China, India, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, and the Gulf States, as well as looking at transnational bodies such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank BRICS (NDB BRICS). They also address newer forms of cooperation such as decentralized South-South cooperation and fragile-to-fragile cooperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must place the United Nations at the center of the development discourse, or we risk leaving behind the contributions of China, Brazil and South Africa among others,\u201d stressed Dr. Adriana Abdenur, Professor at the Institute of International Relations at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, who presented a brief on the emergence of new multilateral development banks and their role within the field of international development. Given the scenario, \u201cin which South-South cooperation providers and new institutions are layered onto (and intertwined with) traditional donors and institutions, the United Nations remains the only platform with the legitimacy to coordinate efforts towards global targets and goals,\u201d wrote Dr. Abdenur.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need knowledge sharing forums, not politicized institutions,\u201d said Dr. Jing Gu, Director of the Centre for Rising Powers and Global Development at the Institute for International Development in the UK, who presented a brief on opportunities and challenges associated with China\u2019s New Silk Road development initiative.<\/p>\n

Dr. Fritz Nganje, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and SARChi Chair at the University of Johannesburg, whose brief focused on decentralized cooperation, stressed that \u201clocal governments have not yet appreciated the potential that their exchanges have to catalyze development.\u201d Dr. Nganje writes, \u201cwhen efficiently coordinated with national mechanisms for development cooperation, decentralized

[South-South cooperation] brings in a multilevel perspective that adds value to South-South development cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For South-South development cooperation to reach its potential we need to explore complementarities and map new opportunities for mutual learning in capacity building and technology transfer, said Dr. Urvashi Aneja, Associate Professor at the Jindal School of International Affairs and Fellow of the Observer Research Foundation, whose research focused on India\u2019s rise as a development partner. \u201cSouth-South cooperation is not set up to address the SDGs directly,\u201d Dr. Aneja said, adding that, \u201cwe need to develop methodologies for measuring impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must work to transform the UN into an enabler,\u201d Ambassador Patriota said in his closing remarks.<\/p>\n

Mr. Huanyu Liu of United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) said that the expectation of Member States is clear, but we must now discuss how we can best work together with all partners toward our common objectives.<\/p>\n

Participants at both events stressed that an essential role of the UN within the new development landscape is to act as a knowledge hub for South-South sharing. However, they stressed that at present there is not enough evidence of what works and what does not. There was agreement that SDGs have brought a new momentum for discussion among Member States and their partners focusing on how lessons learned in South-South cooperation can be aligned with new methodologies and metrics for measurement of impact toward achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.<\/p>\n

via UN Office for South-South Cooperation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Representatives of Member States, the United Nations system and academia came together during a series of events Monday at United Nations Headquarters to discuss an array of emerging South-South approaches that offer significant support toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}