Developing South-South cooperation

The position of the ten ASEAN members on South-South cooperation was formally presented by the representative of Thailand who said that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated inequalities both within countries and between them. To get back on track to achieve the 2030 Agenda, it is necessary to step up action at the local, national, regional and global levels and to make full use of all available tools, including North-South, South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation. As a regional organization, ASEAN is a living example of South-South cooperation. Mutually beneficial cooperation has been the backbone of ASEAN since its inception and has laid the foundation for advancing ASEAN regional integration and developing an ASEAN community with three pillars of cooperation. : political and security, economic and socio-cultural.

Thailand also announced the Global South-South Development Expo, which will be co-hosted by Thailand, the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation and ESCAP, in Bangkok in 2022.

Other delegations stressed the importance of global solidarity and reminded that North-South cooperation can also profit from lessons learned from South-South cooperation. Emphasizing the need for transparency, they called for solidarity without conditionality.

On 30 November the UN Secretary General António Guterres attended the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Group of 77 and China, in New York. He stated inter alia: "We need a quantum leap in unity and solidarity to make collective decisions on the global challenges we face." This call has a great significance and topicality during present times characterized by global vulnerabilities, perplexities and discontinuities.

Further development of South-South cooperation might represent a valuable contribution to a globalization with human face as expected by all peoples.