Ministerial Meeting on South-South Cooperation: Renewed partnerships for actionable solutions in support of implementation of the Doha Programme of Action (DPoA)

Thank you moderator! Excellencies, Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

To respond to your question, let me start by saying that the landscape has changed. Many countries in the Asia Pacific have prospered during the past 3 decades. Many have become emerging economies and development partners such as China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Thailand and Indonesia, just to name a few.

While almost all LDCs in the Asia Pacific are projected to graduate by 2030, there may be one or two remaining. South-South and South-South-Triangular Cooperation has been and will continue to be a valuable form of assistance for the LDCs.

This is because countries can learn from their peers the successes as well as their failures. This can be done through capacity building, transfer of technology and sharing knowledge and expertise.

Last year, we organized the Global South-South Development Expo, which was co-hosted by ESCAP, the Government of Thailand and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation under the theme “Advancing South-South and triangular cooperation for sustainable COVID-19 recover: towards a smart and resilient future.” The Asia Pacific Directors-General Forum on South-South and Triangular Cooperation was organized as part of this. The focus areas of the Forum included:

1. Support the needs of new assistance providers; to 
2. Streamline needs and resource matching; and to 
3. Further strengthen the Asia-Pacific Directors-General Forum on South South and Triangular Cooperation and guide it substantively.

Furthermore, the topics prioritized which are key topics of the Doha Programme of Action included areas for the expo included:

• Digitalization and Smart Future
• SDG aligned South-South Approaches and Practices, Trade and Investment
• Role of Youth and Women, Volunteerism and Entrepreneurship, and Public-Private Partnership
• Creative Economy and Sustainable Tourism
• Green Recovery, Environmental Sustainability and Climate Action
• Food Security and Supply Chain
• Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change
• Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response

South-South and South-South Triangular Cooperation will also enable LDCs to leverage the emerging opportunities in areas such as digitalization, regional and subregional trade agreements and regional value chains. Opportunities also exist in the sustainability domain, such as in green economy and building human resources with the skills of the future.

Thank you