The world has undergone a major economic and political transformation in the last two decades. The changes, particularly in the South, have been more rapid than at any time during a similar span in world history. Relationships within the South and between the South and the North have taken on entirely new dimensions. Key current issues such as the environment and climate change, energy and food security, global poverty, the linkage between growth and equity, and migration are today more global than North-South in nature.

Many countries in the South have built up significant financial and technical capacities. They have begun to transfer some of these resources, on concessional and non-concessional terms, to other countries in the South in the context of an inclusive approach to the management of global problems, spreading the benefits of globalization more widely, creating new markets, and building a broader foundation for sustainable economic growth. In recent years, building on a long history of assistance and other cooperation among developing countries, several Southern countries have become significant partners for development cooperation. A new dimension is clearly being added to development cooperation, particularly for Africa and the Southern countries that remain specially disadvantaged, especially the least developed countries (LDCs), the landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) and the small island developing States (SIDS).

In order to fully harness the vast number of available Southern development solutions to help address old and emerging Southern challenges, the United Nations Secretary-General, in his report to the sixty-second session of the General Assembly (A/62/295), among other things, called upon the international development community, including the United Nations system, to help scale up the impact of South-South cooperation by

1. optimizing the use of South-South approaches in achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals;
2. intensifying multilateral support for South-South initiatives to address common development challenges;
3. fostering inclusive partnerships for South-South cooperation, including triangular and public-private partnerships;
4. improving the coherence of United Nations system support for such cooperation; and
5. encouraging innovative financing for South-South and triangular cooperation (para. 88).

At the Fourth United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation in 2007, UNDP Administrator, Kemal Derviş, stressed the “great need to reinvigorate multilateral forms of South-South collaboration in order to effectively address transnational challenges such as climate change”. He made it clear that “UNDP – with its presence in 166 countries – is committed to responding to the Secretary-General’s call to enhance ‘coherence of UN support to South-South cooperation’ with the help of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation.” He believed that “there is no lack of ideas, resources or know-how to meet the development challenges that lie ahead. What is needed are stronger commitments to capitalize on existing innovations, facilitate networks of knowledge sharing and establish funding mechanisms that would help to encourage nascent and innovative programmes to reach their full potential.” During the handover ceremony of the Chairmanship of the Group of 77 and China in January 2008, he again stressed that “South-South cooperation is an essential vehicle for the exchange of solutions through peer groups of developing nations. Developed countries also share in this moral imperative to respond to the needs of the world’s poor through triangular cooperation as an essential step towards eradicating poverty and promoting human development.”