India has told the UN General Assembly that it is necessary for developing countries to have a policy space and an international economic environment for their own and global development.
"The foremost premise for more and better South-South Cooperation... Is for the global South to enjoy rapid and sustained economic growth.
"Only if the developing countries are able to generate sustained economic growth, can they be expected to invest some of the resources generated in the development initiatives of other developing countries," Counsellor in the Indian Mission Amit Narang said at a session titled 'Operational Activities for Development including South-South Cooperation' in the UN General Assembly yesterday.
Narang said it is necessary for developing countries to have the policy space for their own development, and for the global development agenda to prioritise the maintenance of an enabling and supportive international economic environment.
It will enable developing nations to generate sustained economic growth and in turn invest resources in other developing countries.
He said that deceleration of global economic momentum, particularly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, has been accompanied with growth in the quantum and range of South-South Cooperation, which has expanded significantly.
However, slackening donor enthusiasm in developed countries has emerged as a worrying trend.
"Aggregate aid levels are at less than half of the historical commitments and future trends are also not propitious," Narang said.
Such developments have triggered expectation that the South-South Cooperation will increasingly fill the place vacated by North-South aid and eventually replace it.
"The core ideals behind South-South cooperation are fundamentally different from those of North-South flows. While the latter is a historic responsibility, the former is more in the nature of a voluntary partnership among equals," he said.
Narang said South-South cooperation is "demand-driven, free of conditionalities and responds to the developmental priorities of partner countries.
He said South-South partnership does not have easy parallels with traditional North-South flows and the current multilateral discourse on development cooperation "unfortunately" glosses over these differences.
"In our view, South-South Cooperation can only be seen as a useful supplement to North-South Cooperation, not at all as its replacement," Narang added.
The Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing has estimated that global investments required in infrastructure alone amount to 5-7 trillion dollars annually with much of these investments happening in the global South to enable millions of people to come out of poverty and attain a life of dignity.
