Statement by Mr. Amit Narang, Counsellor, on Agenda Item 24 (a) and (b): ‘Operational Activities for Development including South-South Cooperation’ at the Second Committee of the 69th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on October 29, 2014

 

 

Mr. President,

 

Thank you for giving me the floor.

India associates itself with the statement made by the distinguished representative of the Plurinational State of Bolivia on behalf of G-77. 

We thank the Secretary General for the reports on this agenda item.

Mr. President,

The operational activities of the UN system play an important role in supporting the national policies and strategies of developing countries towards the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals. 

By virtue of their extensive presence on the ground and local expertise, the specialized agencies, funds and programmes of the UN are uniquely placed to assist developing countries pursue their developmental priorities. 

We believe that poverty eradication should be at the heart of UN’s operational activities for development, as its primary objective.

The operational activities of the UN system must have the ability to respond and adapt to local conditions in developing countries, feed into their national development plans and avoid conditionalities.

Mr. President,

Turning to South-South Cooperation, over the past many years, the deceleration of global economic momentum, particularly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, has been accompanied with two parallel developments. 

The first is the growth in the quantum and range of South-South Cooperation, which has expanded significantly. The second is the worrying trend of slackening donor enthusiasm in developed countries. Aggregate aid levels are at less than half of the historical commitments and future trends are also not propitious. 

The confluence of these developments has in turn given rise to two parallel trends. The first is the expectation that South-South Cooperation will increasingly fill the place vacated by North-South aid and eventually replace it.

This expectation has been heightened in the context of the upcoming discussions on the post-2015 development agenda, as well as the Third International Conference on Financing for Development.

The second trend is the attempt in several quarters, including here in the UN, of trying to harmonize the emerging patterns of South-South developmental cooperation with traditional frameworks of North-South aid. 

This latter discussion has sought to prioritize the development of universal norms for all development assistance in order to have standard benchmarks for the identification, delivery and evaluation of South-South flows on par with North-South aid.

Mr. President,

Allow me to make a few observations on these developments and trends.

The rapid growth of South-South Cooperation has been well attested by the report of the Secretary General, which estimates it to have aggregated almost 19 billion US dollars in 2011. 

Yet, the same report also attests to the sheer diversity of South-South flows. The report points out that South-South cooperation takes many forms, is driven by official as well as private initiatives, and involves a wide variety of partners, not to mention a very wide range of activities, from large infrastructure projects to small initiatives for capacity building and experience sharing.

Mr. President,

The core ideals behind South-South Cooperation are fundamentally different from those of North-South flows. While the latter is a historic responsibility, the former, i.e. South-South Cooperation is more in the nature of a voluntary partnership among equals.

The central tenet of South-South Cooperation is for countries traversing the same path towards development to share their developmental lessons and experiences. South-South Cooperation is demand-driven, free of conditionalities and responds to the developmental priorities of partner countries. 

Clearly then, in its innate philosophy and diversity, South-South partnership does not have easy parallels with traditional North-South flows.  

The current multilateral discourse on development cooperation unfortunately glosses over these differences. 

It is also for this reason that both these trends, of trying to get South-South flows replace North-South aid and to attempt to harmonize their standards are misplaced. 

Even more misplaced is the attempt in some quarters to try and monetize South-South flows and bind the larger developing countries into some form of ‘aid’ commitments.

In our view, South-South Cooperation can only be seen as a useful supplement to North-South Cooperation, not at all as its replacement. 

As a matter of fact, as the international community embarks on an ambitious and comprehensive new agenda for development, with significantly expanded deliverables for developing countries, with provisions for reporting and monitoring, it is crucial that the aid commitments of the North are not only met urgently, but are also scaled up. 

While South-South Cooperation will almost certainly grow both in importance as well as in quantum, it is important to recognize that even the so called emerging economies continue to confront major developmental challenges of their own, which would require massive investments in the coming decade. 

The Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing has estimated that global investments required in infrastructure alone amount to 5-7 trillion US dollars annually. Much of these investments will happen in the global South to enable millions of people to come out of poverty and attain a life of dignity.

Coupled with a worsening global economic situation, these requirements for poverty eradication and sustainable development place an inherent limitation on the capacity of developing countries to rapidly scale up their contribution to international development cooperation.

In the context of the post-2015 development agenda therefore, Mr. President, we would have to resist the temptation of placing excessive emphasis on South-South Cooperation or to project it as the principal new component of a redefined Global Partnership. 

We also need to be cautious in overemphasizing the necessity of harmonizing standards between South-South and North-South cooperation. While perhaps both models can learn from each other, such an approach of binding down uniform standards, if pursued obsessively, runs the risk of diluting the richness and diversity of development experience-sharing between developing countries which is the hallmark of South-South Cooperation.

Finally Mr. President,

The foremost premise for more and better South-South Cooperation, and this should be quite obvious, is for the global South to enjoy rapid and sustained economic growth. Only if the developing countries are able to generate sustained economic growth, can they be expected to invest some of the resources generated in the development initiatives of other developing countries. This is borne out of the experience of the past decade as well.

For this in turn it is necessary for developing countries to have the policy space for their own development, and for the global development agenda to prioritize the maintenance of an enabling and supportive international economic environment. 

I thank you.

 

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