Inter-regional expert meeting on the measurement of South-South cooperation

The inter-regional expert meeting on the measurement of South-South cooperation, organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), in collaboration with the UN Regional Commissions, and other partners will be hosted by and held in Qatar, Doha, from 4 to 6 June 2024.

This meeting is part of the United Nations Development Account project on Quantifying South-South Cooperation to Mobilize Funds for the Sustainable Development Goals. The first Expert Meeting held in Brasilia, in July 2023, launched the project and discussed implementation of the global, voluntary Framework to Measure South-South Cooperation, developed in a joint effort by the countries of the Global South. The Framework is currently being refined and will be presented in Qatar, through a Manual, a step-by-step guidance supporting countries to fill the Framework with data.

The Inter-regional expert meeting will have three segments. The morning of 4 June 2024, will be holding a preparatory expert meeting involving pioneering and pilot countries, jointly with project partners, to advance methodological and data collection work as a follow-up to the Brasilia meeting and finalize materials, like the Manual on the Framework, for sharing with a broader group of countries to guide future reporting of data on SDG indicator 17.3.1.  

The main meetings will commence in the afternoon of 4 June, with a high-level event to tackle strategic issues related to South-South cooperation, discussing the importance of South-South cooperation for accelerating progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the role of data in related research, development, and policy agendas. The high-level segment aims to agree on a way forward to enhance the voice of the global South in development finance debates.

Lastly, a two-day technical capacity development workshop will follow, on 5-6 June, to guide Southern countries on applying the Framework and its Manual to empower national authorities to collect and analyse data on South-South cooperation and enable the reporting of country-owned data to the SDG indicator on development support. The events will discuss countries’ capacity support needs, and future data and tools to enable strategic management and further mobilization of South-South cooperation flows.

The event aims to foster dialogue and empower Southern countries to collect and report their own data from country-owned systems. This effort helps to target national policy action and bolster strategic management of development support in the global South.

The target audience will include national, regional and international experts on South-South cooperation and its measurement from development cooperation agencies, statistical offices, and ministries. For the high-level segment, senior officials from countries, regional and international organizations, project partners, and the academic community are invited to discuss and agree on strategies for integration of the Framework to strengthen South-South cooperation.

High-Level speakers

Opening remarks

• Mr. Shaheen Ali Al Kaabi, Director of the Department of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Qatar;
• Mr. Pedro Manuel Moreno, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) ;

Session 1

• Moderator: Ms. Wafa Aboul Hosn, Chief of Economic Statistics, ESCWA
• His Excellency Mr. Mohammed Abdul Aziz Al Nuaimi - Assistant President of the Planning and Statistics Authority;
• Ms. Cristina Xalma, the main responsible for the Report of the South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Ibero-America, by the Iberoamerican General Secretariat (SEGIB);
• Mr. Salah AlMuzahmi, Ph.D., Director of Research & Development Indicators department at the Statistical Centre for the Cooperation Council for the Arab Countries of the Gulf (GCC-Stat);
• Mr. Alex Shimuafeni, Statistician-General of Namibia;
• Mr. Sameh Hussein, Lead Technical Cooperation Specialist in the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB);

Session 2

• Moderator: Ms. Anu Peltola, Director of Statistics, UN Trade and Development;
• Mr. Denis Nkala, Ph.D., Chief- Intergovernmental and UN Systems Affairs in the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation;
• Mr. José Guillermo Ordorica Robles, Ambassador of Mexico in Qatar;
• Ms. Reem Ismail Elsybaey, head of Sustainable development Unit at the Central agency for Public mobilization and statistics (CAPMAS)
• Mr. Márcio Lopes Corrêa, General Coordinator for Multilateral Technical Cooperation, Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC);
• Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the Statistics Division in UN Department on Economic and Social Affairs (DESA);
• Mr. Matthias Reister, Chief of the Development Data Section at the United Nations Statistics Division.