The Global South-South Development Expo (GSD Expo) is being launched by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation in UNDP as a concrete response to the strong commitment made by the Secretary-General and the UNDP Administrator to helping the global South realize its shared aspirations for achieving sustainable and equitable development through the sharing and transfer of Southern-grown development solutions (SDSs). These solutions will be shared on a South-South basis, with the support of the donor community and the multilateral system under innovative triangular and public-private partnership arrangements.

The GSD Expo constitutes one of the Special Unit’s three global and United Nations-wide South-South support platforms: the South-South policy development platform.

Objectives

The GSD Expo is not designed for the discussion of problems or the presentation of generalized scenarios and prescriptions for solving them, as there is no shortage of forums for such purposes.

It is designed solely to enable developing countries and their development partners, including donor agencies, organizations of the United Nations system, and private-sector and civil society organizations to systematically and regularly showcase their evidence-based SDSs. These solutions are deeply rooted in and developed under historical, political, economic, social and geographical conditions specific to the SDS-originating countries. The motto of the GSD Expo is, therefore, Solutions! Solutions! Solutions!

As such, solutions will not be presented as universal “models” but as “references for voluntary learning”, with a common aim of scaling up their development impact as measured by the extent to which such SDSs (a) have contributed to sustainable and equitable development in the SDS-originating countries, and (b) could potentially make similar contributions to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, in other developing countries, especially the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS.

Value Propositions

The GSD Expo offers three value propositions:

1. It offers SDS-originating countries and their development partners the opportunity to systematically organize and regularly showcase successful, sustainable and scalable SDSs.
2. It offers SDS-seeking countries the opportunity to learn from a wide range of SDSs and the “what”, “why”, “who” and “how” of these SDSs may help them to solve similar development problems using the South-South approach.
3. It offers any interested third party (a donor agency, a United Nations organization, or a private-sector or civil society organization) the opportunity to fully appreciate the true value of the showcased SDSs and take an informed and strategic decision to support those scaling-up efforts through innovative triangular and public-private partnership arrangements.

Format of the GSD Expo

The GSD Expo will consist of the following three components:

1. Plenary Sessions – “Eyes on Southern-grown Development Solutions”
   There will be three Plenary Sessions:
   1. Grand Opening of the GSD Expo: The Grand Opening session will be the kick-off event for the Expo. It will capitalize on the presence in New York of dignitaries, ministers, ambassadors, United Nations delegates, other senior government officials, heads of United Nations bodies and United Nations staff as well as the private sector and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
   2. South-South Leaders Round-table: Immediately following the Grand Opening, a special stage will be set, with prominent seats for a group of renowned South-South leaders, to lead an interactive dialogue on the common theme, “Eyes on Southern-grown Development Solutions”. The Round-table is expected to provide the Expo with a broad vision and a shared sense of purpose for future Expos.
   3. Grand Closing: A Grand Closing ceremony will be held at the end of the GSD Expo prior to or combined with the Opening of the Fifth United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation on 19 December 2008. The Grand Closing will begin with reporting on the outcomes of the South-South Leaders Round-table, summary reports by each solutions exchange session as described in (b) below, and an award ceremony. The GSD Expo and the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation will conclude with an inspirational live concert by performers from a Southern country (TBD).
2. Showcasing Solutions Forums (SSFs)
   
   

   Six Showcasing Solutions Forums (SSFs) will be held during the Expo. Each SSF will be allotted two hours to showcase just one Southern-grown development solution (SDS). Each SSF will have one panel comprising five members plus a moderator, all speaking to the same solution being showcased (not five unrelated “best practices”). The panel should include one eminent person who has a full grasp of the solution being showcased and who will present the overview and impact of that solution. The second panelist should represent the policy-making body directly involved in making the right policy choice. The third member of the panel should represent the executive agency or a partner agency that carried out the implementation or made a significant contribution to that process (this could also be someone from a donor agency or United Nations organization). The fourth panelist should come from the private-sector or civil society organization that made an important contribution to the success of the solution, and the fifth panel member should be an individual or a community representative who would explain the resultant social and economic impact of that solution from a beneficiary’s perspective.

   Each panelist would be given 8-10 minutes to describe his/her personal or his/her entity’s specific role and shareable experiences, leaving ample time for quality interaction between the SSF attendees and all the panel members. Such a multi-stakeholder panel configuration is intended to correspond to the configuration of the people attending the SSF. In this way, a policy-maker in the audience might have a specific question for the panelist who presented the policy aspects of the solution; a participant from a private-sector or civil society organization might want to direct his/her question to the panelist who spoke about the role of the private sector; a general participant could direct a question to the panelist who had shared his/her experience as a beneficiary; a solution-seeking participant might ask any member of the panel about how to obtain help in acquiring that solution; and an participant from a donor agency or a United Nations agency might seek advice from the whole panel on how the agency might help to scale up the impact of that solution.

   One or two SSFs may be configured differently to showcase a number of innovative solutions devised by different countries or entities to address a similar challenge but using different approaches and mechanisms.

3. Southern-grown Development Solutions Exhibition
   
   

   The SDS Exhibition will be comprised of booths that will be installed in the Vienna Café area and the Visitors’ Lobby of the United Nations Secretariat building. A total of 30-40 Southern-grown development solutions will be displayed using posters, audio-visual equipment, and tables for printed materials and publications relevant to South-South cooperation.

   Depending on its location in the Visitors’ Lobby of the United Nations Secretariat building and necessary security precautions, the exhibition could be open to the interested public, not just United Nations delegations or United Nations staff, thereby enabling NGOs, advocacy groups and the private sector to learn about Southern solutions to development challenges.

While more detailed submission guidelines will be sent separately once a written “intent of submission (IOS)” is received by the Secretariat, some broad guidelines and principles are provided below.

An SDS should demonstrate, in concrete terms and with evidence, a completed development process that embodied the following eight attributes: (1) national priority; (2) national ownership; (3) national leadership; (4) broad-based partnerships; (5) innovation; (6) economic and social equality; (7) sustainability; and (8) scalability.

All solutions to be showcased should answer such questions as why a specific solution worked in a given environment; how and who made it work; which kinds of benefits it generated and whether those benefits were equitably shared; what made it sustainable; whether the same SDS had been adapted to a different country context and which lessons had been learned from that experience; what the minimal requirements were in order for another country or countries to acquire the whole or part of the showcased SDS from the originating country; what kind of technical support the SDS-originating country might provide; and, last but not least, what a traditional donor, a multilateral organization, or a private-sector or civil society organization could do to support mutual learning.

In addition to showing the above attributes, an SDS should also highlight its direct contribution, in concrete terms and, ideally, supported by quantifiable data, to one or more of the MDG goals. Some of the more specific indicators could include, but are not limited to, the number of jobs created; local income generated; social infrastructure developed; improvements in education and health; contributions to improving the environment and addressing climate change; and the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women.

The SDS Exhibition, displaying 30-40 SDSs, will be opened on Saturday, 13 December, and continue through Saturday, 20 December 2008, in the Vienna Café area (for diplomats, Expo invitees, and United Nations staff) and in the Visitors’ Lobby (for the public) simultaneously.

The Grand Opening of the GSD Expo will be held on the morning of 17 December 2008 at United Nations Headquarters in New York, followed immediately by the South-South Leaders Round-table. These back-to-back high-level segments will feature keynote speeches by world leaders and eminent personalities in South-South cooperation from the public and private sectors and civil society entities.

The Showcasing Solutions Forums will begin on the afternoon on 17 December and continue through the afternoon of 18 December 2008.

The Grand Closing of the GSD Expo will take place on the morning of 19 December, at which time reports on the outcomes of both the South-South Leaders Round-table and the six Showcasing Solutions Forums will be presented. These will be followed by closing remarks by eminent speakers, the announcement of the time and venue for the GSD Expo 2009, and an award ceremony.

The Fifth United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation will be opened on the afternoon of 19 December 2008 (a detailed programme for the United Nations Day will be provided separately).

Two inspirational entertainment events will be staged on the evenings of the 18th and 19th of December (venue to be announced later). They will be open to all participants in the GSD Expo and the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation.

A more consolidated and detailed programme for the GSD Expo and the Fifth United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation will be made available two months prior to these events.

While the SDS Exhibition installed in the Visitors’ Lobby will be open to the public, participation in all other sessions and events of the GSD Expo and the United Nations Day will be by invitation in accordance with established United Nations rules and procedures for similar events.