International Expert Meeting on the Measurement of South-South cooperation

The first Expert Meeting on the Measurement of South-South cooperation, organized by UNCTAD and hosted by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) from Brazil, in association with the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC/MRE), is planned to be held in Brasília, Brazil, from 11 to 13 July 2023, as a hybrid event (in person and online).

The UN Statistical Commission, at its 53^rd session¹ adopted SDG indicator 17.3.1, on “additional financial resources mobilized for developing countries from multiple sources”, and requested UNCTAD and OECD to act as co-custodians of the indicator. The Commission also welcomed the development of an initial framework to measure South-South cooperation to inform this indicator and “requested that further work on this, including on global reporting and capacity building, be enabled by UNCTAD's co-custodianship and led by countries from the global South, building on country-led mechanisms, and included under indicator 17.3.1 in the future” and “invited countries involved in South-South cooperation to work closely with UNCTAD”.

UNCTAD is now launching these activities with a dedicated UN Development Account project, in collaboration with the UN Regional Commissions and the UN Statistics Division.

This Expert Meeting is part of this project and will set the ground for the upcoming activities by sharing experience among interested countries and inviting them to test and validate, at the end of this process, the global, voluntary Conceptual Framework to measure South-South cooperation, developed thanks to the joint efforts of countries from the global South, with a view of refining it in accordance with countries’ needs and circumstances. The meeting will thus pave the way for the preparation of tools and guidance for all countries participating in South- South cooperation.

¹ The final decisions by the 53rd UN Statistical Commission are available on: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/53rd-session/documents/