South-South Cooperation

"Great potential for South-South cooperation to help improve the working lives of millions"

"There is a lot of room for scaling up South-South cooperation and for strengthening interregional cooperation in the global South. Workers and employers and their organizations along with governments all have a role to play in encouraging this expansion," said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder on the occasion of United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation.

Statement | 12 September 2015
© Ray Witlin / World Bank
The international community prepares to formally adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) later this month. Today the International Labour Organization (ILO) highlights the role of South-South cooperation in helping to raise the living standards of millions of women and men through decent jobs as we confront the challenges of delivering the 2030 Development Agenda.

South-South cooperation allows developing countries to pursue their individual and/or shared national capacity development objectives through the exchange of knowledge, skills, resources and technical know-how. It fosters solidarity, equality among countries and peoples ─ both in the north-south and south-south dimensions ─ and democratizes international relations.

Countries attending the recent Addis Ababa Financing for Development Conference pledged to increase south-south cooperation. And we can already see the emergence of a new panorama for south-south multilateral financing through entities such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and the new multilateral development bank agreed by the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). We expect that the world of work will increasingly be taken into account in Financing for Development.

The ILO has been involved in supporting South-South cooperation for the past three decades. In March 2012, it adopted a strategy entitled “South–South and triangular cooperation: The way forward” with the aim of engaging an increasing number of governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations , UN agencies and non-state actors in pursuing decent work goals, especially through peer-to-peer cooperation and good practice exchanges.

We have forged partnerships with various regional groups and countries to support action in the world of work in a range of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Developing countries have subscribed to the Decent Work Agenda. The experience of governments, workers and employers of developing countries in shaping and applying decent work policies in the areas of employment, social protection, fundamental rights at work, including freedom from child labour and forced labour, freedom from discrimination and freedom of association along with social dialogue, have proved to be a particularly valuable resource for promoting the application of the agenda. Their experience has been drawn upon in initiatives to develop capacity; share knowledge and good practices, to provide training and transfer of knowledge and normative approaches. South-South cooperation has been an ideal vehicle for such initiatives.

There is a lot of room for scaling up South-South cooperation and for strengthening interregional cooperation in the global South. Workers and employers and their organizations along with governments all have a role to play in encouraging this expansion.

The 2030 Development Agenda is a once-in-a-generation chance to improve the lives of billions and to respond to the universal demand for decent jobs. We must embrace the opportunity and encourage the solidarity – including the solidarity of South-South cooperation ─ that will help to make this goal a reality.