OREANDA-NEWS. July 1, 2008. As part of the work of the UN Economic and Social Council, a debate on South-South cooperation took place at its Development Cooperation Forum in New York on June 30.

Russia regards South-South cooperation as an important element of the global development assistance architecture and as a conceptual model of developing nations’ participation in international development efforts. It is of fundamental importance that South-South cooperation does not serve as a substitute for, but as a complementary link to the traditional forms of aid in this sector.

South-South cooperation assistance can be no less effective than donor aid, not only bilateral but also that provided under the programs of multilateral institutions. Development partners from among southern countries are united, as a rule, by close cultural, economic and social ties as well as by a more profound understanding of the development tasks especially relevant for this or that region. In addition, the transfrontier, regionally focused character of cooperation projects, their flexibility and predictability facilitate reducing, among other things, administrative costs, which also raises South-South assistance effectiveness.

Without the rational use of comparative advantages and without the harnessing of the potential of partner interaction in the South-South format, the amount of which in 2006 alone exceeded 12.5 billion dollars, as also of triangular cooperation, tangible progress in achieving the internationally agreed development goals is hardly feasible.

If, however, we speak of the integration of South-South cooperation into the global development assistance architecture, it is the priority task here to ensure the proper coordination of efforts by countries providing development assistance, including major rapidly developing southern countries, and to avoid unnecessary duplication among different initiatives and assistance programs.

The Russian side proposed considering partial refocusing of South-South cooperation from the rendering of mostly technical aid to comprehensive assistance programs.

Another important aspect is arranging an effective system of collection, generalization and analysis of statistical data on South-South assistance. It seems that the closest attention should be paid to this matter as well.

Russia is keen to forge a practically oriented dialogue with developing countries in the framework of South-South cooperation, including triangular interaction. We believe the experience of multifaceted and various-format cooperation among developing countries at the bilateral, regional, interregional and global levels in the political, economic, commercial, and investment fields would be relevant in the context of the creation in Russia of a national mechanism for development assistance.