The «emerging economies» of the Global South – which include BRICS, some Latino-American, African and South-Eastern countries – have become new international donors or have enhanced their aid policies over the last two decades, shaping a new architecture of international development cooperation. Such change not only refers to the massive increase in the flow of aid and investments, but also to the contribution itself in term of the principles and mind-sets that these countries have adopted. They intend to set themselves quite far from the traditional model shaped by the industrialized countries, generally seen as perpetuating dependence and inequalities. They rather propose an approach based on solidarity, mutual interest and self-reliance, which has been characterizing their view of international development cooperation since the 1960s. Thus, these «new donors» have challenged attempts to coordinate development policies among donor countries that the DAC has been proposing since the early 1990s, preferring the set of principles established by the United Nations (UN).

The UN, despite the priority attention dedicated to North-South confrontation, has indeed given room to the horizontal dimension of cooperation, with the first institutionalization proposed in the 1970s. This paper deals with the origins and evolution of cooperation among developing countries (later South-South cooperation) from the perspective offered by the UN, between the 1970s and the 1990s. It will trace the more relevant phases of the debate, thus highlighting the UN contribution to convey and promote principles and strategies for development in the Global South. Moreover, it will research the elements of continuity or discontinuity between the current debate and that of the origins.

1. Introduction

The «emerging powers» of the Global South have experienced significant economic growth, thus determining a global shift in manufacturing, production, trade and financial flows over the last two decades.[1] Moreover, they have become new international donors or have enhanced their aid policies, shaping a newer architecture of international aid than the long-established one prevailing during the Cold War. This fundamental change, which essentially started from the new millennium, has seen those emerging economies – which, according to the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), include the BRICS, some Latino-American, African and South-Eastern countries – as the main actors.[2]

They are states that channel the main flows of foreign aid toward other countries of the Global South and often act both as donors and recipients, as the DAC Development Co-operation Report for 2017 showed.[3] Moreover, they challenge the concepts of donors and recipients, seeing themselves rather as equal partners. Priority is given to technical cooperation (sharing of expertise, human resources and goods); financial aid is tied to their trade interests – such as preferential trade or programmes of investments – and not conditioned «by good governance and effectiveness», respecting the sovereignty of partner countries.[4]

Thus, such changes in international development cooperation not only refer to the massive increase in the flow of aid and investments, but also to contribution in term of principles and mind-sets that these countries have adopted. These would seem to be far from the traditional model of industrialized countries, generally seen as perpetuating dependence and inequalities. The «new donors» therefore propose an approach based on solidarity, mutual interest and self-reliance.

They also challenge attempts to coordinate development policies among donor countries that the DAC has been proposing since the early 1990s, with the aim of enhancing efficiency and coherence in policies for international development. The «new donors» prefer, rather, the set of principles established by the UN, who they have been urging to strengthen action for South-South Cooperation (SSC)[5]

In the course of its history, despite priority attention dedicated to North-South confrontation,[6] the UN has indeed given room to the horizontal dimension of cooperation. This was initially defined as cooperation between developing countries and, from 2003 onwards, the UN itself has defined it as SSC.[7] Interest in this dimension and its first institutionalization by the UN development system started during the 1970s. Afro-Asian and Latin-American countries at the time represented a majority presence within the organization and were thus able to define the policy agenda on North-South debate and launch the project for a New International Economic Order (NIEO).[8]

Starting from these considerations, this work aims to propose a reflection on the origins and the evolution of SSC from the multilateral perspective proposed by the UN, between the 1970s and the 1990s. This paper, based on UN and other public and private archives –, will try to give a historical perspective to an issue which has acquired a growing space in political and economic analysis in the last fifteen years, but which has attracted the attention of historians less. By tracing the more relevant phases of the debate, the article will attempt to highlight the trends which arose within the UN development system, seeking elements of continuity or discontinuity between the current debate and that of the origins. Special focus will be given to the principles that the organization has contributed to convey and promote in shaping strategies for the development of the Global South and the positions that the emerging countries have expressed in that context.

2. Cooperation among developing countries: the starting points

Although the first projects of cooperation among developing countries started immediately after the end of the Second World War,[9] the «milestone in the formation of the SSC as a global political movement»[10] was the Afro-Asian Conference of Bandung in 1955. The final Declaration introduced the concepts of self-determination, national and collective self-reliance, solidarity, mutual benefit and respect for national sovereignty. The text referred to economic cooperation, recalling the necessity for a system of financing development regarding key multilateral issues to be formalized both at the UN and at the World Bank (WB). It also asked for the encouragement, inter alia, of investment and joint ventures between Afro-Asian countries, to promote common interests. Moreover, the Bandung Declaration attributed great importance to the cultural and technical dimension of cooperation among developing countries, in particular to the exchange of expertise and knowledge, the launch of pilot projects, the birth of research centres, and training at national and regional level.[11] The government of People’s Republic of China (PRC), the bearer of the so-called «five principles of peaceful coexistence», pointedly invited other delegations not to focus on individual political issues, but rather to stimulate economic and cultural collaboration.[12]

These principles boosted the establishment of organized groups among the newly independent countries. Albeit from different stances and interests, but in the perspective of solidarity and mutual interest, they started introducing a horizontal dimension into international relations, and between the 1950s and 1970s they gave room to a new framework of principles. From the «Spirit of Bandung» the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) first emerged, followed by the fight against both inequalities in the world economic system and dependence on the industrialised North. Regarding the latter, two essential stages should be remembered: the request to convene a conference on international trade, launched by the Afro-Asian block at the X session of the UN General Assembly (GA), and with greater success from the Cairo conference of 1962; and the birth of the Group of 77 (G77) two years later at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). These appointments during the 1960s introduced SSC into the international political agenda through the UN.[13]

The Latin American countries, though absent in Bandung and initially little interested in the proposal of non-alignment – besides convening a major conference on international trade –, joined the Afro-Asia block at the UN in the early 1960s.[14] Until then, the UN economic commission for Latin America (ECLA) had been the centre-place for studying cooperation between Latin-American countries. More broadly, the ECLA – through the Executive Secretary of the Commission, the Argentine Raúl Prebisch, and the group of scholars that guided the Commission in the 1950s and 1960s – had drawn up some of the most interesting studies on that issue, shaped by the structuralist model of development. They indicated the processes of regional integration as complementary phenomena of both development strategies by Import Substitution Industrialization and revision of the world trade system. They therefore suggested the liberalisation of trade at a regional level as one tool for overcoming the limits of national markets in Latin America and including them in the international system.[15]

All the initiatives of regional cooperation and integration sponsored by the UN between the 1950s and the 1960s had the support of the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) of the Secretariat. It had been headed since 1955 by the Frenchman, Philippe de Seynes, who was quite sensitive to the issues of cooperation among developing countries, and a supporter of the processes of regional cooperation, particularly close to Prebisch’s view.[16]

The conceptualization of cooperation among developing countries that the ECLA elaborated in those years was transferred at a global level through the first UNCTAD in 1964. It was where the partnership between the non-aligned countries was consolidated through the creation of the G77.[17] In addition to being the forum of multilateral North-South negotiations on trade and development, UNCTAD became indeed an occasion to affirm the objectives of regional cooperation and integration among the countries of the South. These objectives were shown in the final act of the first UNCTAD in Geneva on 5 June 1964[18]. From then on, economic cooperation among developing countries became part of its political platform, driven by the outcomes of the meetings of both the G77 and NAM, held on a regular basis. UNCTAD focused on the economic dimension of SSC and, in particular, on three aspects: the creation of a global system of trade preferences among Less Developed Countries (LDCs); financial and monetary cooperation policy; and technical support for interregional cooperation programs[19].

Apart from the activities of the UN, the concept of SSC materialised in numerous initiatives outside the organization between the 1960s and the early 1970s. In addition to the experiences of regional economic integration, such as the Latin-American Andean Community, Caribbean Community and Latin American Free Trade Association, new funds and financial institutions were built to provide resources for cooperation between LDCs with the support of the oil-exporting countries. The latter instituted development funds and launched initiatives to coordinate cooperation policies (such as the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, established in 1961 or the several institutions for financing development created during the 1970s).[20] Moreover, the first banks for regional development, such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank, [21] were born.

Following the main trends of the development debate, the entire UN development system, as well as the institutions outside the organization, considered technical cooperation as an instrument for supporting the process of modernisation. In the early 1970s, this approach was defined at the Third Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of NAM, which launched the Lusaka Declaration on non-alignment and economic progress. In that document, the concept of self-reliance became a starting point to claim more equitable relations in the global economic system.[22]

With the beginning of the new decade, technical cooperation between LDCs assumed a more autonomous role in the strategy of NAM, and the need to build a more structured framework for the SSC arose. Thus, the emphasis on trade negotiations, prevailing in the approach of both NAM and UNCTAD, stood alongside the emphasis on technical assistance that prevailed within the UN development system. This was also due to a specialization that the organization had shaped in this sector. Consequently, another body, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), was assigned an important role along this path.

UNDP had been established in 1965 from the merger of two existing UN funds (the Enlarged Program of Technical Assistance (EPTA) and the Special Fund) and had functions of pre-investment. It started its work with a markedly Western footprint, under the guidance of Paul Hoffman, former Director of the Marshall Plan and Managing Director of the Special Fund. He was joined by David Owen, the British economist who led the institutionalisation of UN aid policies, first as Deputy Secretary-General and then as Executive Chairman of EPTA.[23] UNDP was created as a tool to define an internal leadership within the UN in the field of technical assistance. It aimed at easing relations among developing countries, on the one hand, and the agencies and programs for the development, on the other. Immediately after its establishment, UNDP had started to support regional cooperation programs, collaborating for example with ASEAN since its inception in 1967.[24]

At the end of the First UN Decade for development, the critical framework traced by the Jackson Report and its proposals for reform led to an emphasis on the centrality of UNDP within the UN development system. The report recommended greater efficiency and effectiveness so as to face the increasing demand coming from developing countries. According to that view, UNDP was to rationalize the procedures for the formulation and implementation of projects and adapt its internal structures to this aim. It was also to create regional bureaus capable of maintaining contacts with the receiving countries, giving greater powers to resident representatives and definitively implementing the country approach in the definition of projects.[25]

UNDP sought to put these indications into practice. It introduced a medium-term planning approach and insisted on the need for recipient countries to implement the programs through financial contribution and a growing participation of national staff and experts. Moreover, it also asked the developing countries to redirect economic policies on employment, investments, and education. Finally, it suggested boosting the development of human resources, using expertise available in other developing countries.[26]

The perspective of the reform started at the end of the Hoffman Administration, in 1972. The new administrator, Rudolph Peterson, was a banker and Nixon’s advisor on issues related to foreign aid. He then chose two Deputy-Administrators, I. G. Patel, the Indian representative at UNDP, who dealt with the programs, and Bert Lindstrom, Swedish, who dealt with administration.[27]

The new UNDP administration did not neglect the question of SSC. At the request of the GA Resolution 2974 of 14 December 1972, it began to study the best way to share the skills and experiences of LDCs, on the basis of the concepts of national and collective self-reliance and mutual aid. It also examined opportunities and advantages of technical cooperation at both regional and inter-regional levels. For this, the Governing Council of UNDP convened a Working Group that gathered 19 experts from different member states.[28] They recognized the difficulties in achieving the objective of more efficient cooperation and proposed to build a special unit within the Secretariat of UNDP to expressly deal with coordination of all UN activities of technical cooperation among developing countries. The report of the Working Group emphasized the importance of technical cooperation among developing countries in pursuing the NIEO and asked international donors to consider the horizontal dimension of cooperation in all bilateral and multilateral aid programs.[29]

Thus, a path began, full of hopes and new impetus, which introduced a new element into the season of intense debates on development, at the UN and outside the organizations, during the 1970s.

3. From NIEO to the Buenos Aires Conference

The NIEO project launched in 1974 became the essential boost to formalise SSC and gave it autonomy in the development discussion. Two years previously, at the Georgetown Conference of Foreign Ministers of NAM, the project was part of the Action Program for Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries, which gave impetus to convening an experts’ meetings on interregional cooperation. From 30 April to 2 May 1973, these experts drew up a draft report which highlighted the strengthening of four activities: the formation of associations of producers in specific sectors, with priority to agriculture and mining; the identification of opportunities for production and trade at an inter-regional level; the possibility to expand production and trade focusing on the development of new activities; and finally the study of the improvement of transport and communication also at an inter-regional level. Before bringing the final draft to the Conference of Algiers and then submitting it to the Governing Council of UNDP, the report was assessed by the UN economic regional commissions, UNIDO, UNCTAD and by specialized agencies. It was subsequently revised by the same group of experts who met again from 30 to 31 July 1973. At that stage, great support was given by the Under-Secretary Philippe de Seynes, so much so that the project was extended in scope, focusing more on production and trade as well as on the transport system. Regarding financing, it was clear that for a project like that the resources of UNDP would not be sufficient, and therefore it was necessary to involve the major international donors. Finally, in accordance with the principle of self-reliance, the document welcomed the idea of involving the receiving countries in supporting the budget.[30]

The IV Conference of Heads of State or Government of NAM in Algeria in September 1973 took up those recommendations[31], launching an action plan for economic cooperation. The document again placed the emphasis on the concept of collective self-reliance, in particular in the field of science and technology. The declaration of Algiers also indicated some areas of priority interest: trade, industry, transport, monetary and financial matters, technology and training.[32]

That and the following NAM High Level Meetings throughout the whole decade[33] were to highlight the same objectives, though not neglecting the fact that also the agricultural sector was to be valued. While a model of development based on industrialization, the guarantee of food security, especially to the poorest countries was equally important, as the world food crisis of the early 1970s had shown.[34]

Notwithstanding these initiatives, neither economic nor technical cooperation among developing countries was a priority in the political agenda of NAM or of the G77, whose main objective remained trade negotiations with industrialised countries on the basis of the political platform of NIEO. However, the GA resolution that launched this project in December 1974 included the issue of technical cooperation among developing countries (TCDC) alongside the classical themes of North-South confrontation. Once again industry, transport and communications, as well as science and technology were the priority sectors to be involved in these initiatives.[35]

Soon after the resolutions launching NIEO and its Plan of Action, the GA established a special unit on TCDC inside UNDP, which was asked to work with the Secretariat and the entire UN development system. That same GA resolution contained a request to convene an intergovernmental meeting on TCDC, prepared by a series of regional meetings.[36]

In 1975 the Governing Council of UNDP tried to meet GA demands, drawing up a proposal on New Dimensions in technical cooperation,[37] that introduced, inter alia, more flexible rules on the use of local experts for the realisation of the projects.[38] The proposal was subsequently approved by the VII Special Session of the General Assembly on Development and International Economic Cooperation. With resolution 3461, it was clarified for the first time that the TCDC was an integral part of global development cooperation, as well as one of the most effective tools to promote cooperation among developing countries. The resolution asked UNDP and the UN Secretariat to promote these objectives and provide funds for the convocation of both regional conferences and a general meeting in Argentina in the second half of 1978.[39]

Up to the end of the decade, UNDP had a better perspective of action thanks to a growing availability of funds, which between 1970 and 1980 almost tripled, with a special increase in Northern European countries’ contributions (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland) and despite a decline of US contributions (which passed from 38% of the total to only 18%).[40]

UNDP moved firstly in search of closer cooperation with the main actors of the UN system: the GA, ECOSOC, UNCTAD and the UN Secretariat, then with economic regional commissions and specialized agencies. These all moved in the same direction, undertaking to implement the horizontal dimension of cooperation in their programs.[41]

At the same time, UNDP worked in view of the first international conference on technical assistance among developing countries that was to be held in Buenos Aires in 1978 under the UN aegis. During the run-up to the conference, UNDP collaborated with Regional economic commissions and with UNDESA. Between 1976 and 1977 they organized four regional meetings, where the representatives of governments could identify their abilities, and specific problems to be addressed.[42]

All reports of the UNDP Governing Council up to the Buenos Aires conference considered the promotion of self-reliance, through the enhancement of productive capacity and of local resources, as the fundamental objective of technical cooperation. The reports also urged for greater availability of expertise as well as the exchange of information and knowledge among developing countries.[43] Most outside the UN, in particular the Organization of African Unity and NAM Conferences, also expressed the same stances, showing great support for the UNDP initiatives.[44]

A Preparatory Committee on TCDC was established within UNDP. It worked in contact with a panel of high-level experts coming from the Third World, during the regional conference held in Kuwait between May and June 1977. [45] The other two preparatory meetings were held in New York between September 1977 and the beginning of 1978, organized by UNDP with the contribution of regional economic commissions and specialized agencies. During the final meetings, the draft Plan of Action was amended on the basis of requests that emerged during the debate. It aimed at emphasizing TCDC as an essential step toward NIEO, to be pursued through the collective self-reliance of LDCs. In addition, it requested that the TCDC have greater specificity both in bilateral and multilateral existing programs among themselves. Moreover, it assigned TCDC a political orientation that should characterize all instruments of international development cooperation and be adopted as an instrument of work by the UN system. Finally, the draft Plan of Action aimed at strengthening the gap in communication and information systems among LDCs.[46]

The Buenos Aires conference, attended by 138 countries, was opened in September 1978 and was the first multilateral meeting on cooperation among developing countries, although limited only to the field of the technical assistance. Its Secretary General was the new UNDP administrator, Bradford Morse, appointed in 1976 after a career as a US Republican Congressman and since 1972 as UN Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs.[47] His deputy in Buenos Aires was Bernard Chidzero, from Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Deputy-Secretary-General of UNCTAD.[48]

In his opening address, Morse indicated some specific aspects that should be taken into account when talking about cooperation among LDCs. On the one hand, he underlined the need to pursue agrarian reforms and rural development, the quest for global health, and the link between scientific and technological knowledge. On the other, he rather stressed the importance of economic and social development. Two objectives were confirmed from this phase: the first, to revive national development founded on the concept of self-reliance; and the second, to consider SSC as an essential contribution to NIEO.[49]

There were essentially two main documents examined during the meeting: the Plan of Action for promoting and implementing technical co-operation among Developing Countries, which included the recommendations drawn up during the preliminary work; and the Background paper on Technical Co-operation among developing countries as a new dimension of international cooperation for development, which contained the objectives and principles of the TCDC, forming the basis for the general debate in the plenary assembly.[50]

The latter document tried to put the TCDC into a historical perspective, highlighting the importance for the whole process of economic development and identifying several assumptions. These included the primary responsibility of the developing countries themselves to support the process, along with the parallel and crucial action of both the industrialised countries and the UN system; the need for balanced and equal relationships among the participating countries that had to be respectful of national sovereignty; the boost to identify common elements, recognizing differences and strengthening solidarity among them; finally, the urge to limit dependency and, rather, stimulate the potentialities of each developing country.[51]

The draft Plan of Action was discussed both in plenary session and in the various committees that assessed the individual aspects to be dealt with.[52] The conference took place in a climate of substantial cooperation, despite some political issues being brought up in the debate (such as the Arab-Israeli conflict). The G77 and PRC stood compact, trying to introduce some of the themes of the North-South dialogue in that phase (debt relief, terms of trade and tariff barriers). They also proposed to extend the composition of the Governing Council of UNDP to all 149 UN members (the total member countries in 1977). Moreover, they asked for the creation of a special fund for the TCDC. They did not achieve any results on these issues, due to the reaction of the industrialised countries, above all the United States that clearly hindered this approach. The US wanted to support horizontal cooperation, though not accepting any new challenging requests. Furthermore, neither did it want to further amplify the discussions that were underway in UNCTAD, nor was it likely to strengthen the role of UNDP, enlarging membership, thereby giving it a highly political nature. Its aim was to dispel the doubts of G77 on the truly good intentions of Western countries regarding TCDC. The US was willing to give its contribution to the TCDC through UNDP, but without a follow-up to the demands of the G77. Thus, it obstructed even the idea of setting up a TCDC fund, an approach that was consistent with the general decline of foreign aid the US government experienced during the 1970s.[53]

In the general debate, it clearly emerged that the developing countries would not accept any indications other than those coming out from the Conference, as well as from the following High-Level Meetings on SSC. Above all, Brazil and the PRC pointed out that they would not accept guidelines or principles imposed by the industrialised countries, rather preferring the UN consensus However, as the Indian delegation clarified, the SSC was only a complementary tool, which could not replace the North-South cooperation.[54] China in particular, since the autumn of 1978, had given proof of its interest in UN activities on this issue by asking UNDP to provide technical assistance for its national program of modernization, launched in 1978. This measured approach had already begun when that government sponsored training courses and seminars for staff coming from other developing countries with the contribution of UNDP. From 1973 to 1977 the Beijing government had therefore contributed to the UNDP budget for a total amount of about US$ 6 million.[55]

At the Buenos Aires Conference, the G77 continued expressing the greatest interest in scientific and technological cooperation. Unlike the UNDP Administrator, it paid less attention to education and the cultural dimension, with the exception of the nexus women-development and the theme of the circulation of information. African countries particularly asked for more attention to the development of transport and communications.[56]

The final document, the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA) which still represents a sort of SSC act of birth, recalled the old concept of national and collective self-reliance, and formalised for the first time the concept of horizontal cooperation. Moreover, it emphasized the need to strengthen the capacity of developing countries to identify and analyse, together, the main themes of development. It also promoted gathering the resources available amongst them, thus improving strategies and common policies with the aim to increase the quality and quantity of international cooperation.[57]

BAPA contained a set of recommendations for action at national, sub-regional, regional and global levels, which required some essential steps. It sought cooperation between UNDP – which had the task of implementing the plan and monitoring results – the wide group of UN specialized agencies, and the regional development banks, especially those created in the oil-producing countries during the 1970s. From the latter and from industrialised countries, BAPA requested funding for all SSC activities led by the UN. In addition, it asked for the financial and political support of the developing countries themselves at a national level, as this provision was one of the essential elements to carry out the process in the perspective of greater accountability of the recipient countries.[58]

As Stokke has written, «The plan of action can be read as a document containing the common wisdom of the day on the topic of how cooperation between developing countries could be attained and how the various actors could contribute to this end».[59] However, enthusiasm was soon to diminish because of the difficulties in the practical application of the directives of Buenos Aires.

4. After Buenos Aires: SSC during the «lost decade»

After Buenos Aires, some promising steps appeared to allow the pursuit of cooperation among developing countries, although North-South negotiations on trade and aid continued to have priority in the G77 and NAM agendas. The term SSC entered the academic language and gained further perspectives in international scholarly articles. In 1981, the Conference of Caracas and the related Action Program on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (ECDC) returned to the issue of cooperation, underling a clearer distinction between TCDC and ECDC and a greater demand for institutionalizing the former as an instrument to facilitate the latter. Moreover, while technical cooperation was channelled mainly through the UN system, the economic dimension of SSC on the whole remained firmly anchored to the internal debate of NAM and the G77. An Intergovernmental Coordination Committee on ECDC also started working on the subject. Furthermore, GA resolution 38/201 of 1983 accepted to establish a Trust Fund for ECDC/TCDC, which inherited part of the unspent funds of an Emergency Operations Trust Fund. Some years later, that Fund was to be dedicated to the memory of Perez Guerrero, former Secretary of UNCTAD.[60]

However, the international context, as well as the position of the main actors, changed to such an extent as to undermine the Buenos Aires project.

The debt crisis of the early 1980s, the structural adjustment policies pursued by the international financial institutions (IFIs) and the new paradigms of development negatively shaped all forms of cooperation but especially the practices of SSC during that decade.

The decline of BAPA was already clear at the two meetings of the High Level Committee on the Review of the TCDC, a body that the GA established in 1980 to check progress in the implementation of the Plan by the UN system every two years. The meetings, which took place respectively in Geneva and New York between 1980 and 1981[61], showed the actual picture of the situation. Industrialized countries, both Western and Socialists, considered the request to increase their financial commitment as excessive. The USA and the UK, for example, opposed such a request that above all came from the most advanced among the countries of the Global South.[62] Some LDCs, like Argentina, Gambia and Guinea, instead, criticized the commitment the BAPA had requested from developing countries and took a stand, as usual, on the need for contribution from the North. India, in particular, accused the industrialised countries of not taking an interest in SSC as they felt threatened by it.[63]

Another point to consider concerned UNCTAD’s loss of centrality. From the beginning, it had been a driving force and a constant inspiration for the SSC. However, throughout the 1980s it lost its central role and since 1995 it has left space for a new organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO), which stood outside the UN system. The beginning of the 1980s witnessed a general deadlock in UNCTAD negotiations and a migration of initiatives from Geneva to New York. The cooperation among LDCs, both technical and economic, as a UN tool for development, weakened, and no significant initiative was launched.[64]

Since the office of Manuel Perez Guerrero, links between the G77 and the UNCTAD Secretariat had weakened too. At the same time, the absence of any organized leadership of the G77 was clear, as the Uruguay Round was to show in the following negotiations, underlining the deep division of interests as well as of economic perspectives and policies within the G77.[65]

Other aspects, relating to the internal dynamics of the G77, contributed to these outcomes, such as the idea that the intervention of industrialised countries was necessary and had the priority over any project of solidarity among developing countries. Moreover, some countries of the G77 feared that supporting SSC could weaken their requests from the North and the NIEO project, shifting the focus from crucial issues (trade and aid). Finally, Southern countries feared a possible burden-sharing in foreign aid, an idea that had been stated in a certain phase inside the DAC.[66]

Another point to be considered regarded tensions and disagreements, not new or unexpected, inside the G77. They dealt with political position, lack of organizational capacity and a growing differentiation in the level of development. Regarding the latter, during the 1970s, Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, for example) grew at a rate of over 6% per annum; soon after, the so-called Asian tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) grew at the same level, while the Latin-American group and the least developed African countries weakened, affected by the debt crisis.[67]

These dynamics were clear among the G77 during the meetings which the group and NAM held from the end of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s.

The South-South Meeting in Arusha in January 1979, a non-governmental meeting organized by Mahbub ul Haq, the Pakistani economist, Director of the Policy Planning and Program Review Department of the WB, was to assess the state of negotiations between North and South. It was attended by many prominent economists from the LDCs, representatives of UN regional commissions, of UNCTAD and of various non-governmental organizations, among which also the Ford Foundation.[68] It soon proved to be a moment of reflection on the weaknesses of the G77, resulting from the growing divergence among the newly industrialised countries, the Arab world and the rest of the LDCs. The meeting seemed to underline a climate that did not lean in favour of SSC.

A similar situation was outlined a few months later by a report the Political Affairs Division of the UN Department of Political and Security Council Affairs developed in view of the VI Conference of NAM in Havana in early September 1979.[69] The document emphasized how some political issues – not linked solely to the Cold War – influenced dynamics within the group.[70] Some countries, such as India, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Zambia wanted the Conference of Havana to deal also with the settlement of existing territorial and political disputes so as to regain cohesion and internal drive. However, worsening of the economic situation experienced by many recipient countries contributed to steadily reducing attention on political issues, as the substantial decrease of attendance recorded at the previous session of the GA had shown. Nevertheless, expressing Policy Guidelines on the reinforcement of collective Self-Reliance between developing countries, the Cuban Conference reiterated the concept that SSC was considered as a complementary road to North-South Cooperation and a major task of the richest countries.[71]

At the end of September, the Ministerial Meeting of the G77 held in New York confirmed that the horizontal and vertical dimensions of cooperation should be conducted in parallel, as established in Havana. During that meeting, it was understood that another constant feature like the establishment of a Secretariat (i.e. «technical support unit») of G77, was to be archived.[72]

A few months later, in March 1980, decisions on the resumption of global economy negotiations had the upper hand over all other initiatives in view of the subsequent XI Special Session of the General Assembly on NIEO. Once again, the emphasis of oil importing countries was placed on energy cooperation, while exporters continued to support a broader approach, not only based on that sector.[73] The G77 considered the GA Special session of 1980 as a failure for the opposition of the industrialised countries. However, the group did not renounce global negotiations and expressed itself in favour of a new international strategy for development for the Third UN decade dedicated to it, to be processed in the course of the following GA ordinary session.[74]

There were two further elements that contributed to reducing the importance of SSC in the development debate between the end of the 1970s and the subsequent decade. The first dealt with the idea of inserting the energy issue, as proposed by the Mexican government at the end of 1979, among the priorities of both the SSC and the global North-South negotiations.[75] The refusal of the oil exporting countries was constantly justified by the initiatives of assistance to the least developed countries already undertaken and the desire to maintain the position acquired. The second referred to the bond between global negotiations on NIEO and SSC, with constant reference to the concepts of national and collective self-reliance, tying the fate of SSC to that of the North-South dialogue. The ground-breaking charge of the NIEO project was lost at the beginning of the 1980s and was to be put aside by the Cancun Conference of 22-23 October 1981.[76]

Throughout the 1980s, notwithstanding the repeated requests of the G77, no conference on SSC at the UN was convened. Although reference to the concepts of national and collective self-reliance remained constant, many of the ideas, initiatives and statements remained worthless or gave poor results.[77]

In 1981, the first report of the Brandt Commission on North-South, a program for survival was published. It dealt with the need to relaunch the North-South dialogue and give new impetus to the global perspective of development. The report also focused on SSC, highlighting how the concept of self-reliance was not linked to a prospect of autarchy, but to an «attempt to reduce economic dependence on the North, to rely more on themselves and to promote their dignity and fuller independence».[78]  Echoing the conclusions of the plan of Arusha, of February 1979,[79] the ECDC was seen as a positive policy also for industrialized countries, as expanding trade among developing countries could enlarge opportunities for all. Moreover, it returned to concepts consistently discussed until then: the importance of regional and sub-regional economic integration processes; the new opportunities for Southern countries to share responsibility for development; the need to create an international organization involving all the developing countries; the enhancement of the technical aspect of cooperation among them, giving the necessary financial support to the action of UNDP, especially on the part of donor countries.[80]  In this respect, the report stated that BAPA «need for more effective funding and coordination in all areas where local problems […] are part of a broader experience; and it is in meeting these essential requirements that the sharing of technology is most urgent and most valuable».[81]

The idea that some more advanced countries, in terms of industrial development, such as India, Brazil and Yugoslavia, could help other developing countries also emerged from the report. Effectively, that input seemed to be grasped by some countries of the G77 which tried to complement the global approach on NIEO with a more flexible attitude.[82] This was the case of the initiative taken by India to convene an informal meeting of a small group of G77 members in February 1982. The general aim of the meeting was to relaunch North-South negotiations at a global level, along with taking up some points raised at the Cancun Conference. After the failure of that meeting, the best road to be pursued toward a NIEO seemed to be that of SSC.[83]

The meeting had a deliberately informal character, to avoid any possible complaints by the countries excluded. The invitation (sent to 34 countries plus the PRC), according to the Indian government, was addressed to those countries that had shown more interest in the relaunch of multilateral negotiations on NIEO.[84] India took the opportunity to resume the conversation among developing countries, exchanging information on issues that could be brought forward. Firstly, they aimed at an exchanging of ideas on the themes of the North-South dialogue, in particular on food, energy, trade and financial support. The crisis in both the food and energy sectors since the early 1970s had again increased the need to build a more effective, permanent global system to address the respective themes on a multilateral level and with a more respectful approach regarding the needs of the recipient countries.[85] Secondly, they wanted to propose a reflection on the objectives and perspectives of SSC, looking at the relaunch of BAPA. While the Indian government did not give up the priority accorded to global negotiations, in the short term it wanted to rely rather on SSC as a tool to address the most urgent problems.[86]

The meeting gave much room to the resumption of global negotiations. The importance of the sectors of priority interest, as desired by the Indian representatives, was recognized. However, the discussion showed a deep division among the members of the G77 on the approach to be adopted. India, like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Yugoslavia, assumed a more flexible mind-set. It aimed at reaching useful compromises on specific issues rather than pushing for global negotiations and, according to UK observers, could gain credit among Southern countries by relaunching negotiations on specific topics. The «hard liners», like Algeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Vietnam and Cuba, as well as the OPEC countries, instead opposed any partial negotiations in specific sectors.[87]

On SSC, India also took the initiative to relaunch some mechanisms, such as the creation of a multi-lateral financing facility with an initial capital of US $ 15-20 million. However, the initiative did not win any enthusiasm.[88] Brazil, in particular, opposed this, as well as the idea of providing a facility to build a consultancy service for developing countries, fearing a presence of Indian technicians and workers in Latin America.[89] As head of the UK mission in New Delhi, Gordon Watherell, wrote:

the impression which the Indians seem to have given a number of the other delegations (and which seems to have irritated Brazil) is that South/South cooperation means essentially the marriage of capital from the oil producing countries with the Indian know-how for the benefit of the Indian industry.[90]

Two other themes, such as the establishment of both a G77 Secretariat and a South-South Commission, were discussed but not recorded in the final statement, as there was strong opposition (especially from the OPEC countries) to finance new institutions of the G77 as well as mechanisms to support development. India particularly requested a commitment from OPEC countries to provide for «supplies at concessional prices and financial assistance in the development of indigenous energy resources», as Venezuela and Mexico were already doing in Latin America. The strong opposition of Kuwait and the absence of Saudi Arabia from the meeting showed to what extent the oil exporting countries do not like the requests and the approach, on the whole, proposed by the host country.[91]

An apparently super partes position was taken by the Chinese delegation, which had accepted the invitation from India as relationships began to unbend. They were aware that New Delhi also wanted to «keep an eye on Chinese overtures to the rest of the developing world», since «they will not wish to lose this to China».[92] The Chinese representatives deliberately chose not to support either of the two approaches which emerged from the conference and when the meeting ended looked at the strengthening of SSC as its more relevant outcome.[93]

Another aspect that the meeting in New Delhi highlighted concerned the absence of the UN representatives at the meeting. As mentioned, the dissolution of the North-South dialogue led to a displacement of discussions from Geneva to New York, but, more broadly, to a marginalisation of the UN from the development debate. A sort of disaffection for the discussions as well as the performances, which the UN development system had offered up to then, occurred. The expectations of the plan of Buenos Aires were not realized also because of the dysfunctions of the UN system, as well as a lower availability of funds compared to the previous decade. During the Morse administration, UNDP had tried to realize a synergy between UN agencies and programs, which actually introduced a reference to SSC in their strategies and methods of intervention. The whole system was involved in rural programs, food security, health, employment practices and industrial development. In the same way, UNDP had sought the involvement of regional banks as well as the WB in the financing of development projects. However, a series of problems arose: an absence of coordination among UN bodies, an overlapping of responsibilities (for example UNIDO and UNCTAD maintained their responsibilities) and competition between organizations.

Furthermore, the total budgets of specialised agencies indeed exceeded that of UNDP, which in total ran only 11% of the entire UN resources for development, while other programs and funds – such as WFP, UNICEF, UNFPA – were gaining ground. More broadly, funds at the disposal of the specialized agencies (FAO, WHO, ILO, UNESCO) for technical assistance in the same period were higher than those gathered by UNDP.[94] At the Pledging Conference of 1982, while some donor countries confirmed or increased their contributions (France, Canada, Scandinavian countries) other major donors drastically reduced theirs (West Germany, USA, UK). In addition, the major Western donors, the USA and the UK, in particular, obstructed the institutionalisation of TCDC. They considered it only as part of the process of development of the Third World and were not prepared to support it through the UN.[95]

During the third meeting of the High Level Committee on TCDC that took place in New York between 31 May and 6 June 1983, Morse explained the report on the work carried out by UNDP and the UN system as a whole in support of TCDC between 1981 and 1982.[96] He highlighted the essentially «promotional» activities that the UN had started, including the establishment of information networks and assistance for the drafting of regional programs in the fields of education and health. Among the critical issues, UNDP underlined the need to assess the impact of these initiatives, on the basis of the outcomes recorded by the various beneficiary governments. Moreover, it suggested identifying sectors or activities that seemed particularly suited to TCDC and concentrating on these. The meeting also assessed the questionnaires on TCDC activities UNDP had submitted to LDCs. Actually, very few had given an answer, showing little, though useful, exchanges of experiences between African and Asian countries, especially in the field of training. The Arab countries were particularly active in TCDC, while the kind of activities they described were more similar to forms of bilateral aid according to the Western model than to the approach based on equal partnership among developing countries sponsored by NAM.

For some governments, such as the UK, this type of reflection appeared contradictory and misleading. UNDP insisted on considering TCDC as an end in itself, on which strategies and institutional mechanisms could be founded and to which funds had to be allocated. Many Western countries had already argued in Buenos Aires that TCDC was to be considered as only one of the tools for development. Thus, they continued preventing the institutionalisation of TCDC as well as the creation of a fund dedicated to it. In so doing, they tried to ally with those countries, both donors and recipients, who did not share the same enthusiasm that the UN showed on this matter. Certain recipients were particularly worried about the use that some of the more advanced countries among them – such as India and Argentina – made of TCDC for their commercial advantage. Moreover, Western countries did not accept the distinction between TCDC and traditional forms of technical assistance, both multilateral and bilateral, as they thought that technical assistance represented the basic condition for LDCs to advance economic cooperation among themselves.[97]

The meeting of the High-Level Committee on Technical Cooperation also showed the weak enthusiasm of the LDCs, underlined by low participation and low-ranking delegations. However, representatives of the Global South, especially the PRC, India and Venezuela, showed strong cohesion, thus preventing Western countries from using any internal divisions within the group to oppose institutionalization of TCDC. At the same time, the donor countries refused again to provide further funding to UNDP to support TCDC, considering the latter as the direct responsibility of LDCs.[98] At the following meeting of the UNDP Governing Council in June 1983 that line was maintained by Western donors, which continued to hinder any request to extend powers, funds and membership of UNDP.[99]

Thus, UNDP did not succeed in playing the role of a focal point of the entire UN development system, while the main competences remained firmly with the UN Secretariat, in particular UNDESA. The latter, in 1978, faced internal reorganization, according to GA Resolution 32/197 on restructuring of the economic-social sectors of the UN system. The old UNDESA gave way to three new divisions, one of which was expressly dedicated to technical cooperation and was led from 1978 by Saidou Issoufou Djermakoye from Niger. Successively, and up to 1992, it was headed by three representatives of the PRC: Bi Jilong from 1979 to 1984, Xie Qimei from 1985 to 1990, and Ji Chaozhu from 1991 to 1992.

The Department of Technical Cooperation for Development expressly dealt with the management of technical assistance programs shaped and carried on by the Secretariat and was intended as the operational arm of the UN system in areas not covered by the specialized agencies. However, its functions overlapped those of specialised agencies and of UNDP, generating competition for resources and tensions.[100] Moreover, it encountered several difficulties due to the progressive cuts of funds and staff, as well as to its exclusive dependence on programs such as UNDP and UNFPA.[101]

During the 1980s, a few new initiatives reported interest for SSC by the UN as provided for in BAPA. There were also some signs of a growing interest from the Global South, regarding the establishment of funds for financing the SSC and the birth of a new forum for debate and research.

In 1983, the Perez Guerrero trust fund was established to finance cooperation among the G77 countries. Three years later, the South Commission was born as something different from the organization of the Global South countries, which had been repeatedly demanded. It was built as an intergovernmental body, which sought alternatives after the failure of NIEO and aimed at shaping solutions to face the debt crisis.[102]

It was after the end of the Cold War, in a different international context and thanks to the affirmation of the so-called «emerging countries», that the SSC was to live a new phase of development.

5. The relaunch of SSC: New perspectives for the new millennium

Regarding other global issues, the momentum and activism of the 1970s was resumed in the 1990s, without the constraints of the Cold War, in the context of the revival of multilateralism and a new limelight for the UN.

Meetings inside and outside the UN multiplied, and new prospects of financing SSC seemed to materialize through the birth of new regional and universal funds established for that purposes (such as the UN Fund for South-South Cooperation in 1995, or the Special Multilateral Fund of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (FEMCIDI) of the organization of American States (OAS), in 1997). Moreover, processes of regionalization intensified, especially in Latin America, where centre-left or reformist governments launched many initiatives for regional cooperation and integration, like those carried out by Chavez in Venezuela or by the Cuban government. In most cases, these initiatives dealt with commercial cooperation, though they showed a strong political characterization and a quest for emancipation (see, for example, the Bolivian Alliance for the peoples of our America, ALBA, and the Hemispheric Community of Latin American and Caribbean states, CELAC). As regards the experiences of cooperation among African countries, they had rather a business-oriented characterization.[103]

Some of these experiences were inspired by the South Commission’s Report of 1993 on The Challenge to the South. It was the outcome of several meetings held between 1987 and 1990, collected to highlight the new opportunities which had opened for SSC since then and the role of a «locomotive» that some members could pursue.[104] The Report linked indeed the revival of SSC to the rise of new international donors, which had previously been developing countries and which then acquired the status of donors or extended the amount of their foreign aid towards partners in the Global South. The so-called new donors channelled aid as well as models and strategies that they considered to be antithetic to the development aid traditionally carried out by the industrialised countries during the Cold War. They proposed, instead, symmetric relationships based on the principles of mutual benefit between equal partners.[105]

In 1995, the same content was included in the UN report on New Directions for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, worked out by a series of internal and external consultations, as well as a final meeting of an external panel of experts, which met in New York from 6 to 7 March 1995. It resumed the concept of a «locomotive country» with reference to those emerging states whose economic and political weight could give the needed boost and support to the processes of regional and inter-regional cooperation at that stage.[106] The Report admitted that TCDC, though increasingly relevant, was not well integrated within the UN development system. It called for a new special emphasis on it considering the broad changes occurring in the international system and their impact on the traditional structure of multilateral technical cooperation. It considered the new focus on TCDC as «an important contribution to the further elaboration of TCDC as a dynamic instrument in support of a truly global enterprise for development». [107]

The same year, besides the launch of the UN Fund for SSC, GA resolution 50/119 called for a Conference on SSC, which was to be held in Nairobi only in 2009.

Meanwhile, contributions to the UN development system from the emerging countries had seen an increasing trend since the 1990s and a more marked one by the new millennium. The countries involved in this trend, especially the «most powerful developing countries», like Brazil, India, China and South Africa, have loosened their ties with G77 since 2000, as well as with UNCTAD. They have formed new links between themselves in terms of economic and financial relationships. In the meanwhile, the G77 started to represent the position of the African least developed countries.[108]

These dynamics were translated also in the maintenance of high-level positions within the UN Secretariat economic departments, especially by Chinese and Indian representatives. In 1992, Ji Chaozhu retained the guide of the UN Department for economic and social development and prepared the path for the internal reforms that the following year saw the creation of three new departments. These included the Department for Development Support and Management Services, headed by Ji Chaozhu himself up to 1995 and then led by Jin Yongjian; and the UN Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, headed by the Indian economist Nitin Desai, from 1993 to 1996.

The First Summit of the South, organized by the G77, which took place in Havana in 2000, again won attention for SSC «as a means to development and economic independence.»[109] A series of meetings throughout the 2000s underlined this new approach. Among the most important there was the High-Level Conference on SSC held in Marrakech in 2003 – whose New Framework of Action asked the UNDP Special Unit to work with developing countries to formulate and implement programs, including a South-South dimension in all its activities.[110] There were also meetings of the High Level Committee on the review of TCDC that renamed the UNDP special unit on TCDC as special unit for SSC, to underline the increasing focus on this aspect in 2004; and finally the Doha second South Summit, 12-16 June 2005.[111]

In this context, the idea of development cooperation among Global South countries looked different from the traditional pattern of the Cold War. Two issues were challenged: the new donors could not accept the tandem donor-recipient, which required asymmetry and dependence. Moreover, they contested the DAC Principles – stated in the 2005 Paris Declaration and reaffirmed at both the Accra Summit of 2008 and the Busan Meeting of 2011. These asked for a form of coordination among international donor strategies according to the criteria of effectiveness and coherence.[112]

Since the Summit on SSC in Havana in 2000, the new donors have contested indeed the birth of a global governance on international development cooperation based on those criteria. Above all, they question the principle of conditionality which characterizes the DAC model. They considered it as an instrument of interference in internal affairs that aimed at achieving the interests of the donors, rather than as an element of mutual development. The idea which emerged was rather to push the traditional donors to accept the existence of a plurality of actors and a diversity of approaches. This was the idea that prevailed at the High-Level UN Conference on SSC, held in Nairobi in December 2009[113], to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of BAPA.

6. Conclusions

The UN played an important role in promoting the processes of cooperation among developing countries. Although the North-South confrontation had more space in the debates and initiatives undertaken by the organization and its bodies, the UN has given room to the horizontal dimension of cooperation. In their struggle against inequalities in the world economic system, as well as dependence on industrialised nations, the Afro-Asian and Latin-American groups within the UN showed an interest in cooperation among themselves linked especially to the technical dimension. Considering its growing specialization in that field, during the 1960s the UN welcomed these requests and started to work through its development system, involving the UN economic departments of the Secretariat, the economic regional commission, UNCTAD, UNDP and the specialized agencies. Since then, LDCs have had the chance to shape their stance and strategy within the UN development system, founding them on the principles of fair trade, solidarity and self-reliance. The UN in turn gave room to these requests and managed to introduce cooperation among developing countries into the international political agenda.

The trends that emerged between the 1970s and the 1990s within the UN describe the purposes and objectives of these processes, from the founding moment, namely, the Buenos Aires Conference of 1978 held under the aegis of the UN, up to the revival which followed the end of the Cold War.

During the 1970s, the UN system emphasized the importance of TCDC in pursuing NIEO, which became the essential boost to formalise SSC cooperation and gave it autonomy in the discussion on development. The Buenos Aires Conference and its Plan of Action introduced the TCDC as an autonomous tool for development, notwithstanding the opposition of the industrialized countries, who feared for the request to finance a new international body dealing with Third World development. UNDP, as it was established to represent the core of the UN development system, worked like all UN bodies, considering the horizontal dimension of cooperation in all bilateral and multilateral aid programs.

From the 1978, the BAPA on TCDC – considered the act of birth of SSC – started an implementation phase that, in the course of the 1980s, disappointed expectations. This was due to a series of transformations of the international system that radically changed the paradigms of development and the processes triggered by the NIEO project. Furthermore, both the internal dynamics of the G77 and the internal processes at the UN dealt a blow to cooperation among developing countries as well as to NIEO. A new phase began, during which the developing countries tried to find a different road to achieve NIEO. In doing so, they started considering cooperation among themselves as a crucial tool to overcome the failure of the North-South dialogue and the economic and debt crisis. Thus, they continued referring to the basic principles of national and collective self-reliance, mutual benefit and solidarity which they had expressed in several meetings since the Bandung Conference.

It was only since the 1990s that the perspective changed, in a more favourable international context in which UN initiatives were more successful. There were numerous meetings on SSC – according to the new UN definition assigned in 2003 – and new sources of international funding, opened by the rise of «new international donors» from the Global South, whose approaches were better accepted by the recipients countries.

The «new donors» have been challenging all the framework of DAC rules and strategies based on conditionality and effectiveness, as they considered them tools to limit sovereignty as well as to pursue the interest of the main donors. Rather, they have been asking the traditional donors to accept the existence of a plurality of actors and a diversity of approaches, as they stated in 2009 at the High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation in Nairobi.

Thus, the «new donors» seem to be more favourable to the UN set of principles of sustainable and human development – the Millennium Development Goals and the Global Goals.  In their view, UN values are more consistent with the series of principles of self-reliance, mutual interest and solidarity that the developing countries – now emerging countries and new donors – have been constantly expressing since the Bandung Conference.

 

 

[1] Kevin Gray & Barry K. Gills, ‘South-South Cooperation and the rise of the Global South’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4, 2016, p. 558.

[2] According to the DAC, these countries belongs to the category of the so called «other providers of Development co-operation» and usually they are classified as three groups: the emerging donors, which are «countries that have relatively new, or recently revived, aid programmes», among which the ex Socialist countries, now members of the EU (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Estonia and Slovenia) and other extra-EU countries (Israel, Russia and Turkey); the providers of South-South coo-operation as developing countries, middle income countries and emerging economies (Brazil, China, India and South Africa, but also Colombia, Egypt, Thailand, Chile and Mexico); and the Arab donors (such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). See: Kimberly Smith, Talita Yamashiro Fordelone & Felix Zimmermann, Beyond the DAC. The welcome role of other providers of development co-operation, DCD Issues Brief, May 2010, p. 1.

[3] OECD, Development Co-operation Report 2017. Data for Development, OECD, 2017, pp. 285-208.

[4] Kimberly Smith, Talita Yamashiro Fordelone & Felix Zimmermann, Beyond the DAC. The welcome role of other providers of development co-operation, pp. 6-7.

[5] Branislav Gosovic, ‘The resurgence of South–South cooperation’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4, 2016, pp. 733-743. On Policy Coherence for Development see Jacques Forster & Olav Stokke (eds.), Policy coherence in development co-operation, London: Frank Cass, 1999.

[6] On UN contribution to development debate see, for example, Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij, Dharam Ghai & Frédéric Lapeyre, UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2004; and Olav Stokke, UN and Development. From Aid to Cooperation, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 2009.

[7] See General Assembly Official Records, Fifty-Eighth Session, Supplement (Suppl.) n. 39 (A/58/39), Report of the High-level Committee on the Review of Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, Thirteenth session (27-30 May 2003), New York: United Nations, 2003; and A/RES/58/220, 23 December 2003.

[8] On NIEO see, for example, the special issue of Humanity, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2005.

[9] Reference is made herein to the birth of the Arab League in the context of decolonisation in the Middle East, and to the plan of Colombo, that gathered seven British Commonwealth countries in Asia with the aim of fostering economic development. Ibero-American Programme for the Strengthening of South-South Co-operation, Chronology and History of South-South Cooperation. An Ibero-American Contribution, Working Document n. 14, 2014, p. 13.

[10] Kevin Gray & Barry K. Gills, ‘South-South Cooperation and the rise of the Global South’, p. 557.

[11] ‘FINAL COMMUNIQUÉ OF THE ASIAN-AFRICAN CONFERENCE Held at Bandung from 18-24 April 1955’, International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 11, Issue 1, 2009, pp. 94-102. Christopher J. Lee, ‘AT THE RENDEZVOUS OF DECOLONIZATION. The Final Communiqué of the Asian-African Conference, Bandung, Indonesia, 18-24 April 1955’, International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 11, Issue 1, 2009, pp. 81-93.

[12] The People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was intended to be placed firmly on the inside of the Third World, considered that solidarity between these countries was a necessity linked to the «anti-imperialistic» fight against the United States, the principle of peaceful coexistence in Asia and the refusal of the division into blocks. The PRC, however, while opening up a channel of SSC bilaterally with many African countries since the 1960s, remained outside – other than that from the UN until 1971 – also from the circuits of the NAM and later of the G77, to change tone only at the end of the 1970s. Chen Jiang, ‘China and the Bandung Conference: Changing Perceptions and Representations’, in See Seng Tan & Amitav Acharya (eds.), Bandung Revisited. The Legacy of the 1955 Asian-African Conference for International Order, Singapore, Singapore: NUS Press, 2008, pp. 133-159.

[13] Thyge Enevoldsen, Niels Fold & Steen Folke, South-South trade and development. Manufactures in the New International Division of Labour, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993, p. 22.

[14] John Toye, ‘Assessing the G77: 50 years after UNCTAD and 40 years after the NIEO’, Third World Quarterly, 35, 2014, 10, p. 1760. United Nations, A History of Unctad, 1964-1984, New York: United Nations, 1985, p. 10.

[15] Edgard Moncayo Jiménez, ‘The Contribution of the Regional UN Economic Commissions on Regional Integration Processes: The Case of ECLAC’, in Philippe Lombaerde, ‎Francis Baert & ‎Tânia Felício (eds.), The United Nations and the Regions. Third World Report on Regional Integration, Heidelberg-London-New York: Springer Dordrecht, 2012, pp. 29-31. On ECLA’s first phase under Prebish see G. Rosenthal, ‘ECLAC: A Commitment to a Latin American Way toward Development’, in Yves Berthelot (ed.), Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas. Perspectives from the UN Regional Commissions, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004, pp. 181-194.

[16] On this common vision, see Edgar J. Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901-1986, Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008, pp. 295, 330 and passim.

[17] As Gert Rosenthal wrote, «the ideas promoted by UNCTAD in the 1960s are clearly an outgrowth and an extension of ECLA’s seminal ideas of the 1950s». Gert Rosenthal, ‘ECLAC: A Commitment to a Latin American Way toward Development’, p. 194.

[18] First Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva, 15 June 1964, ‘Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Developing Countries made at the Conclusion, of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Group of 77)’, in Mourad Ahmia (ed.), The Group of 77 at the United Nations, The Collected Documents of the Group of 77, vol. II: South-South Cooperation, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 6-8.

[19]  UNCTAD, Beyond Conventional Wisdom in Development Policy. An Intellectual History of UNCTAD 1964-2004, New York and Geneva: United Nations, 2004, pp. 82 ss.

[20] The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (1971), the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (1971), the Arab Fund for Technical Assistance to African Countries (1974), the Saudi Fund for Development (1974), the Arab Bank for Development in Africa (1975) and the OPEC Fund for International Development (1976). Since 1975, the Coordination Group of Arab National and Regional Development Institutions was set up, then the regional Arab and Islamic Development Banks and the OPEC Fund for International Development (including other OPEC countries, like Venezuela). The largest donors from this region since the 1970s have been Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Ibero-American Programme for the Strengthening of South-South Co-operation, Chronology and History of South-South Cooperation, p. 14.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Resolutions of the Third Conference of the Non-Aligned States, Lusaka, September 1970, Johannesburg: The South African Institute of International Affairs, February 1971.

[23] Craig N. Murphy, The United Nations Development Programme. A Better Way?, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006, pp. 72-75 and passim. Olav Stokke, UN and Development, pp. 50, 62, 503.

[24] UNDP carried out a specific study that lasted two years and involved a higher number of experts. The outcome in 1972 represented the basis for the next cooperation that ASEAN established among its member states in the fields of industrial development, agriculture and forestry, transport, finance, monetary services and insurance. UNDP, UNDP and South-South Cooperation since 1996  (http://web.undp.org/evaluation/documents/thematic/ssc/chapter/chapter2-undp-ssc.pdf).

[25] Stephen Browne, The UN Development Programme and System, London and New York: Routledge, 2011, pp. 20-25.

[26] Olav Stokke, UN and Development, pp. 207-210.

[27] Stephen Browne, The UN Development Programme and System, p. 26.

[28] UN, Report of the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, 20 August to 12 September 1978, A/Conf.79/13/Rev.1, p. 28. The Working Group was under the chairmanship of Hama Arba Diallo from the Upper Volta.

[29] Olav Stokke, UN and Development, p. 227.

[30] United Nations Archives (UNA), Secretaries General, Secretary General Kurt Waldheim (SGKW), S-0972-0003-05-0001. Enrique V. Iglesias (Executive Secretary ECLAC, Santiago) to Kurt Waldheim, Reports of the meetings of experts from April to July 1973, 7 August 1973.

[31] Political Declaration of the Fourth Conference of Non-Aligned Countries (Algiers, 5-9 September 1973) (http://cns.miis.edu/nam/documents/Official_Document/4th_Summit_FD_Algiers_Declaration_1973_Whole.pdf, pp. 5-22).

[32] Preparatory Committee of the Fourth Conference of the Non-Aligned Countries, Algiers, 29-31 August 1973, Second Session of the Preparatory Committee of Non-Aligned Countries, Report, NAC/ALG/CONF.4/P.C/3/PART II, 31 August 1973, in UNA, SGKW, S-0972-0003-05-0001. See also S. Folke, N. Fold & T. Enevoldsen, South-South trade and development, p. 23.

[33] See for example UNA, SGKW, S-0972-0002-004, Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Non-Aligned Countries, Lima-Peru, 25-30 August 1975, Note for the Record (Diego Cordovez), 31 August 1975.

[34] The world food crisis and the first oil shock of the early 1970s affected the LDCs above all, because of the increase in the price of cereals and the contraction of food aid, on the one hand, and the increase in the price of fertilizers and products for agriculture, on the other. FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture, 1974, Rome: FAO, 1974. Ruth Jachertz, ‘The World Food Crisis of 1972-1975’, Contemporanea, No. 3, July-September 2015, pp. 425-443.

[35] Thyge Enevoldsen, Niels Fold & Steen Folke, South-South trade and Development, pp. 24-25. The GA resolution especially asked to introduce mechanisms to defend prices and markets of exported commodities; to increase trade giving preferential treatment to imports from developing countries; and to promote financial and monetary cooperation.

[36] Olav Stokke, The UN and Development, p. 227.

[37] UN Economic and Social Council, Official Records, Fifty-Ninth Session, Suppl. N. 2A, UNDP, Report of the Governing Council, Twentieth Session (11-30 June 1975), E/5703/Rev.1, New York: United Nations, 1975.

[38] Stephen Browne, The UN Development Programme and System, p. 26.

[39] GA, Res. 3461, XXX, 11 December 1975. UN, Report of the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, 20 August to 12 September 1978, A/Conf.79/13/Rev.1, pp. 28-29.

[40] Stephen Browne, The UN Development Programme and System, p. 31.

[41] For example, since 1976, the Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD established a special committee on TCDC next to the more well-known on the ECDC, which in the same year elaborated the General System of Trade Preferences among Developing Countries. UNCTAD, The History of UNCTAD 1964-1984, New York: United Nations, 1985, pp. 186-187. However, the project did not take off and only ten years later, in the framework of the Uruguay Round, the possibility to make it effective was to be showed. Other cooperation initiatives among developing countries launched in the same place in those years aimed at the promotion of commercial cooperation among groups of member states and the creation of marketing multinational enterprises. See Thyge Enevoldsen, Niels Fold & Steen Folke, South-South trade and Development, p. 26. Ibero-American Programme for the Strengthening of South-South Co-operation, Chronology and History of South-South Cooperation, p. 16.

[42] The conferences took place in: Bangkok, Lima, Addis Ababa and Kuwait, between May and June 1977. UN, Report of the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, 20 August to 12 September 1978, A/Conf.79/13/Rev.1, p. 29.

[43] The background of the initiatives from 1976 to 1978 in: Economic and Social Council Official Records, Governing Council of the UNDP, Report of the 25th Session, 12 June-3 July 1978, Supplement n. 13, E/1978/53/Rev.l, New York: United Nations,1978, pp. 48-60.

[44] UN, Report of the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, 20 August to 12 September 1978, A/Conf.79/13/Rev.1, p. 29.

[45] Ibid. See also UNA, SGKW, S -0913- 0018-05, UN Press Release, Final Session of the Preparatory Committed for UN Conference on Technical Co-operation among developing countries, 15-19 May 1978.

[46] UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-002-010, Letter Morse to Waldheim, 27 January 1977. UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-0018-005, UN Press Release, Preparatory Committee on Technical Co-operation Conference Concludes second session: requests revised Action Plan, 26 September 1977.

[47] Stephen Browne, The UN Development Programme and System, p. 31.

[48] Chizero replaced the Egyptian, Abdel Meguid, who had followed the preparatory phases of the Conference. See UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-0002-010, UN Press Release, Bernard Chidzero Appointed Deputy Secretary-General of Conference on Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries, 31 May 1978.

[49] UN, Report of the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, 20 August to 12 September 1978, A/Conf.79/13/Rev.1, p. 41. See also Waldheim’s Speech in UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-0018-005, UN Press Release, Text of the Statement by Secretary-General at Opening of TCDC Conference in Buenos Aires, 30 August 1978.

[50] UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-0018-005, UN Press release, Conference on technical Co-operation among developing countries to be held in Buenos Aires, 30 August-12 September 1978, Background Release, 21 August 1978.

[51] Technical co-operation among developing countries as a new dimension in international co-operation for development, A/CONF.19/6.

[52] Draft Plan of Action, A/CONF.19/5.

[53] UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-0018-005, Department of State to US Mission to UN, New York, and US Mission Geneva, telegram, 13 September 1978, forwarded by Marcial Tamayo (Director of UN Information Center, Washington), to Ferdinand Mayrhofer-Grunbuhel (Special Assistant to the Secretary-General), Interoffice Memorandum, 3 October 1978.

[54] UN, Report of the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, 20 August to 12 September 1978, A/Conf.79/13/Rev.1

[55] UNA, SG, KW, 0911, 0003, 003, Morse to the UN Secretary-General, Interoffice Memorandum, 20 September 1978.

[56] UN, Report of the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Buenos Aires, 20 August to 12 September 1978, A/Conf.79/13/Rev.1, p. 41.

[57] UN Press release, Conference on technical Co-operation among developing countries to be held in Buenos Aires, 30 August-12 September 1978, Background Release, 21 August 1978. On this issue see Paulo Esteves & Manaíra Assunção, ‘South–South cooperation and the International Development Battlefield: Between the OECD and the UN’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 35, n. 10, 2014, pp. 1779.

[58] UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-0018-005, UN Press Release, TCDC Conference Adopts Plan of Action to Achieve National and Collective Self-Reliance Among Developing Countries, 13 September 1978.

[59] Olav Stokke, The UN and Development, p. 228.

[60] ‘High-Level Conference on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries, Caracas, 13-19 May 1981’, in Mourad Ahmia (ed.), The Group of 77 at the United Nations, pp. 59-112. See also UNCTAD, The History of UNCTAD, pp. 192-194.

[61] UN, General Assembly, Official Records, Report of the High-Level Meeting on the Review of technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, 35th Session, Suppl. n. 39 (A/35/39), New York: United Nations, 1980.

[62] National Archives of the UK (NA), Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), 58/3110, UN Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, FCO-UN Department, UNDP Governing Council 30^th Session June 1983, 8 June 1983.

[63] Romania was also unsatisfied that there are many tasks related to TCDC that should be financed by the LDCs themselves. Thus, it asked the North, development banks and the UN system to increase their contribution to a substantial extent. Olav Stokke, The UN and Development, pp. 228, 628.

[64] Thyge Enevoldsen, Niels Fold & Steen Folke, South-South trade and development, pp. 28-31.

[65] On the 1980s as a turning point in the history of UNCTAD see I. Taylor, K. Smith, The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), London and New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 67 ss.

[66] Branislav Gosovic, ‘The resurgence of South-South cooperation’, p. 835.

[67] John Toye, ‘Assessing the G77’, p. 1768.

[68] The following were present: the Egyptian economist Ismail Sabri Abdullah, Chairman of Third World Forum, the Nigerian Adebayo Adedeji, Executive Secretary of UN economic commission for Africa, the Ghanaian Z. Z. Dadzie, Director general for development and international economic cooperation, Mahbub Ul Haq, the Pakistan economist, Director of the policy planning and program review department of the WB, Raul Prebish, as consultant of ECLA, Ashok Mitra, Minister for Finance, Planning and Development, government of West Bengala, India, Amir H. Jamal, Minister of Communication, Tanzania, the representatives of UNCTA and ECLA, and the Secretary general of the Commonwealth, Shridath S. Ramphal. See Rockefeller Archives Center, Ford Foundation Records, Unpublished Reports, Reports 3255-6261, box 250, folder 005561, letter Mr. Soedjatmoko to David E. Bell (Executive Vice President, The Ford Foundation), 9 January 1979.

[69] UNA, SG, KW, S-0913-0019-001, Department of Political and Security Council Affairs, Political Affairs Division, Current Adjustments in the Non-Aligned Group, confidential, 15 June 1979.

[70] We are referring to: The Treaty between Egypt and Israel, issues relating to Cyprus and East Timor, recognition of the Pol Pot regime, the issue of apartheid and conflicts on the African continent.

[71] UNA, SG, KW, S-0972-0003-001, Policy Guidelines on the Reinforcement of Collective Self-reliance between developing Countries, NAC/CONF.6/C.2/L.18, 8 September 1978. UNA, SG, KW, S-0972-0003-01, K. K. Dadzie to Secretary General, Interoffice Memorandum, 14 September 1979.

[72] Some Latin American countries, with very few exceptions (Venezuela, Jamaica and Guyana), were firmly opposed to that idea, to avoid unnecessary duplication while relying on the support of the existing international organizations. UNA, SG, KW, S-0972-0003-01, Note on the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77 held in New York on 27-29 September 1979.

[73] UNA, SG, KW, S-0972-0003-001, M. J. Stopford, Summary of the working papers for the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77 in New York, 11-14 March 1980.

[74] UNA, SG, KW, S-0972-0003-001, M. J. Stopford, Summary of Declaration adopted by the Meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77 on 30 September 1980, 6 October 1980.

[75] UNA, SG, KW, S-0972-0004-0012, Diego Cordovez, Current discussions on the continuation of the North-South Dialogue, 23 October 1979.

[76] See Guya Migani, ‘The Road to Cancun. The life and death of a North-South Summit’, in Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol & Federico Romero (eds.), International Summitry and Global Governance. The rise of the G7 and the European Council, 1974-1991, London and New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 174-197.

[77] Branislav Gosovic, ‘The resurgence of South-South cooperation’, p. 733.

[78] Independent Commission on International Development Issues, North-South: A Programme for Survival. Report of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues, Cambridge: The Mit Press, 1980, p. 96.

[79] ‘Arusha Programme for Collective Self-Reliance and Framework for Negotiations, 16 February 1979’, in Mourad Ahmia (ed.), The Group of 77 at the United Nations, pp. 451-453.

[80] Independent Commission on International Development Issues, North-South A Programme for Survival, pp. 97-100.

[81] Ibid., p. 144.

[82] At the meeting of the Brandt Commission in Kuwait, 7 and 8 January 1982, Brandt himself seemed to have encouraged the Indian government to relaunch the North-South dialogue through a new conference. See NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, M. K. Ewans to Mr Beetham (Head of Chancery), Briefing on the “New Delhi Consultations”, 22-24 February 1982, 19 January 1982.

[83] NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, C. D. Partridge (New Delhi) to David Revolta, letter 16 December 1981. The participants in the meeting were: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Malaysia, The Philippines, Pakistan, People’s Republic of China, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, UAE, Yugoslavia, India for Asia; Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Tanzania, Zaire, Zambia, Ivory Coast for Africa; and Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay for Latin America. NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, Meeting of G77 Countries in New Delhi, 22-24 February 1982, Annex A to K. P. O’Sullivan (Economic Relations Dept.) to C. Sinclair (HM Treasury, FCO), North/South: the State of Play, restricted, 3 February 1982.

[84] Some countries were discontent as excluded from the meeting (as Nepal) or «miffed», (such as Mexico or Morocco); others were apparently «sour», such as Saudi Arabia, which would have declined the invitation officially due to the presence of Egypt but in reality due to other reasons, linked to its relationship with Pakistan. Then there were also the reactions of Vietnam for the presence of PRC, as well as North Korea for the inclusion of South Korea at the last minute. NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, C.A.K. Cullimore to R. N. Dales, letter 29 January 1982. Ibid., C. D. Partridge to K. P. O’Sullivan, telegram confidential, 19 February 1982.

[85] NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, M. K. Ewans to Mr Beetham (Head of Chancery), Briefing on the “New Delhi Consultations”, 22-24 February 1982, 19 January 1982.

[86] NA, FCO, 50/1908, New Delhi Conference, C. D. Partridge to K. O’Sullivan, letter 15 January 1982.

[87] No significant result on the question of food came up during the discussions, with the decision to delegate the task of elaborating further projects to a coordinating group. On the subject of energy, it emphasized the importance of transfer of technology and the flow of finance from North to South. However, the idea of creating an authority for energy affiliated to the WB, with the substantial support of the oil exporting countries, was strenuously fought by the OPEC cartel. On investment and development aid, the concern that the International Development Agency (IDA) could be diminished in its role and its financial capacity dominated the debate, as well as strong criticism toward the criteria of strict conditionality. NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, C.A.K. Cullimore to R. N. Dales, letter 29 January 1982. Ibid., C. D. Partridge to K. P. O’Sullivan, telegram confidential, 19 February 1982.

[88] NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, G. G. Wetherell (Delhi) to K. P. O’Sullivan (FCO), letter confidential, 26 February 1982. Ibid., G. G. Wetherell to K. O. O’Sullivan, confidential Letter, 4 March 1982.

[89] Exemplary of the Indian attitude was the circulation of a joint ventures list (distributed during the meeting) showing Indian enterprise presence in developing countries, especially in Middle East. NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, Delhi to FCO, telegram 208, confidential, 25 February 1982.

[90] G. G. Wetherell to K. O. O’Sullivan, confidential Letter, 4 March 1982, in NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference.

[91] NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, G. G. Wetherell (Delhi) to K. P. O’Sullivan (FCO), letter confidential, 26 February 1982. Ibid., G. G. Wetherell to K. O. O’Sullivan, letter confidential, 4 March 1982.

[92] NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, C. D. Partridge to K. O’Sullivan, letter 15 January 1982.

[93] NA, FCO, 59/1908, New Delhi Conference, G. G. Wetherell to K. O. O’Sullivan, letter confidential, 4 March 1982.

[94] O Stokke, UN and Development, pp. 229 ss.

[95] Ibid., p. 249.

[96] United Nations, Report on the progress made in implementing the tasks entrusted to the United Nations development system by the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries: report by the Administrator, New York: United Nations, 7 March 1983, TCDC/3/2.

[97] NA, FCO, 58/3110, UN Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, FCO, UN Department, High Level Committee on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries: 3rd Meeting, New York, May 31 – June 6, 1983, Steering Brief, May 1983.

[98] NA, FCO, 58/3110, UN Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, Report of the UK Delegation to the Third High Level Committee on TCDC, New York, 31 May-8 June 1983, restricted, 8 June 1983.

[99] FCO, 58/3110, UN Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, FCO, UN Department, UNDP Governing Council 30th Session June 1983, 8 June 1983.

[100] NA, FCO/58/3110, UN Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, UN Documents Section-FCO, Technical Cooperation Activities undertaken by the Secretary-General, September 1983.

[101] It was composed of the non-aligned countries, chaired by the former president of Tanzania, Mr Julius Nyerere, and with the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh as Secretary general. in NA, FCO, 58/3110, UN Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, UN Department (A. Archibold) to Mr Pettitt, Department of Technical Cooperation for Development, 16 December 1983.

[102] Ibero-American Programme for the Strengthening of South-South Co-operation, Chronology and History of South-South Cooperation, p. 16.

[103] Branislav Gosovic, ‘The resurgence of South-South cooperation’, p. 735.

[104] The Challenge to the South. The Report of the South Commission, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990.

[105] Branislav Gosovic, ‘The resurgence of South-South cooperation’, p. 736

[106] These countries were identified by UNDP as 22: China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Republic of Korea for Asia; Turkey and Malta in the Middle East and the Mediterranean; Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago for Latin-America; Egypt, Tunisia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Mauritius for Africa. United Nations, High-Level Committee on the Review of Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries Ninth session, New Directions for Technical Cooperation Among Developing Countries, TCDC/9/3, 7 April 1995.

[107] Ibid.

[108] John Toye, ‘Assessing the G77’, p. 1772.

[109] ‘Excerpts on South-South Cooperation from the Havana Programme of Action adopted by the G-77 First South Summit, Havana, Cuba, 10-14 April 2000’, in Mourad Ahmia (ed.), The Group of 77 at the United Nations, pp. 541-548.

[110] Mourad Ahmia (ed.), The Group of 77 at the UN, pp. 129-140.

[111] Ibid., pp. 141-175.

[112] OECD, The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) (http://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/34428351.pdf); OECD, Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness: Proceedings 29 November-1 December 2011 (https://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/HLF4%20proceedings%20entire%20doc%20for%20web.pdf).

[113] United Nations, General Assembly, Report of the High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation, Nairobi, 1-3 December 2009, A/CONF.215/2, 21 December 2009.