This year’s United Nations
Day for South-South Cooperation comes as the international community
is transitioning to a post-2015 development agenda centred on shared
prosperity and environmental sustainability. Despite remarkable advances in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, progress across the South has been uneven. Extreme poverty, rampant inequality, malnutrition and vulnerability to climate and weather-related shocks persist. According to the UN Multidimensional Poverty Index, 2.2 billion
people still live in abject poverty. About 1.4 billion people, the
majority in the South, still have no reliable electricity, 900 million
lack access to clean water and 2.6 billion do not have adequate sanitation. In the face of this stark reality, South-South and triangular
cooperation offer a path to balancing growth and equity in the context
of a new Global Partnership for Sustainable Development. I encourage countries of the South and all development partners
to come together to share, disseminate and scale up successful development solutions
and technologies. This November’s Global South-South Development Expo
in Washington, D.C. will provide one such important platform. On this United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, let us
reaffirm our commitment to pioneering South-South approaches that will
ensure shared prosperity, sustainable development and a life of dignity for all.
