Demystifying South-South and Triangular Cooperation

South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) might sound like development jargon. But as a key driver of sustainable growth and innovation, it’s important that there be a shared understanding of the concept.

Let’s unpack what SSTC means – and why it matters for rural people.

What’s all this about north and south?

“Global North” and “Global South” refer to two broad groups of countries that share political, economic and social characteristics. These terms don’t always perfectly reflect geography – Australia and New Zealand are both part of the Global North, for example – but they are a useful shorthand to describe our planet’s main socioeconomic divide.

Development cooperation has historically involved a higher-income country from the Global North providing finance, resources or technical knowhow to a lower-income country in the Global South.

But this model ignores the fact that countries in the Global South have as much to learn and borrow from each other, if not more, than from countries in the Global North. That’s where SSTC comes in.

Okay, so what is SSTC?

South-South cooperation occurs when countries in the Global South – along with institutions and civil society organizations – exchange knowledge, technology and resources to solve common problems.

Triangular cooperation is a variation on this idea. It’s a form of South-South cooperation supported by a third country in the Global North or by a multilateral agency, such as IFAD. While this partner provides financial or technical assistance, the cooperation is still led by the Global South partners.

What can developing countries learn from each other?

Countries in the Global South share challenges in areas like agricultural development, public health and climate change. They also often have similarly limited resources to tackle them. What's more, their populations frequently resemble each other demographically and culturally.

This means that solutions that work in one country, region or community have a good chance of finding success in another.

In particular, many developing countries have valuable recent experience of bringing rural people out of poverty, developing markets and introducing environmental protections. Even upper-middle-income countries still have pockets of persistent rural poverty and can benefit from – and contribute to – SSTC.

How does SSTC benefit rural people?

It is precisely in the rural areas of developing countries, where hunger and poverty run deepest, that SSTC can have its biggest impact. There are countless examples from IFAD’s portfolio of small-scale farmers seeing tangible benefits as a result.

• With processing equipment and training from China, as well as cross-border trade linkages with five neighbouring countries, small-scale farmers in Tanzania expanded sunflower oil production and began exporting across the region.
• Experts from Afghanistan provided training to pastoralists in neighbouring Tajikistan, enabling them to breed cashgora goats – an innovative hybrid of angora and cashmere – and produce strong, fine yarn.
• Family farmers in Cuba learned from a series of exchanges on livestock and dairy production with counterparts in Uruguay, eventually adopting similar low-cost technologies and agroecological practices.
• After Kyrgyzstan became an independent country in 1991, policymakers reformed complex and outdated laws around land use. Today, pastures are regulated so effectively – both boosting livestock production while reducing carbon emissions – that Georgia is reforming its own land codes similarly.

How does IFAD encourage SSTC?

At IFAD, we continually apply best practices and lessons learned to new projects, but we have three initiatives specifically dedicated to SSTC:

• The China-IFAD SSTC Facility leverages expertise from China and other developing countries, and promotes the exchange of innovative, accessible and affordable technologies. For example, young people in Ghana and Nigeria have learned from and built partnerships with businesses in China to farm fish using cage aquaculture, which is less vulnerable to climate change.

• The Rural Solutions Portal collects ideas that work from across the Global South. It includes over 100 expert-approved case studies – from climate-adapted fodder production in Bangladesh to digitally linking community savings groups with traditional banks in Zambia.
• Our regional SSTC and Knowledge Centres in Beijing and Brasilia facilitate the identification and dissemination of innovative practices by bringing us closer to our partners and project participants.

In collaboration with the other Rome-based UN agencies, IFAD also launched a joint SSTC programme to promote home-grown school feeding. The programme, which shares success stories in bringing nutritious food from local small-scale farmers to schoolchildren, is advancing in Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal and the Philippines.

*

SSTC might seem like a complicated term, but the idea at its heart is a simple one. Through solidarity and cooperation, developing countries can give each other a helping hand, and progress together along the path to sustainable development.

Learn more about SSTC and the UN Day for South-South Cooperation.