CAPTION: Prime Minister Bainimarama. File Photo.
As the current Chair of the Group of 77 (G77), Fijian Prime Minister, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama will host a number of Eminent Personalities of the South (developing countries) as members of a G77 High-level Panel Meeting in Natadola, Nadi on 7 – 9 May.
The Panel is expected to discuss creative ways to engage and cooperate amongst the 132 developing countries that are members of the G77, otherwise known as South-South Cooperation. At the meeting, the Panel will engage in interactive sessions at the conclusion of which they will come up with recommendations which will be presented to the G77 Foreign Ministers Meeting in September when they meet in New York.
South-South Cooperation has since grown into what is today a vital component of the international development fabric. Consequently, G77 members have increasingly recognized that solutions to many of their development challenges are similar in nature and would be effectively addressed through partnerships between and amongst themselves.
In this way, not only is the G77 the main voice of the developing countries on economic and social issues in the UN system, but it has also boosted the bargaining strength of the South, in championing the primary interests of the entire developing world.
In a very general sense, South-South Cooperation has thus become the term used to describe the exchange of resources, technology, and knowledge between developing countries, and is being promoted as an essential tool to deliver capacity building and support activities in developing countries.
Moreover, South-South Cooperation can also complement partnerships between the developed and developing countries through cooperation in various areas of socio-economic development.
Meanwhile, various global initiatives have contributed to the successes of SSC partnerships in the past two decades. These include the Millennium Development Goals (2000 – 2015) and the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals which are now looming large on the global development radar.
The G77 was founded in 1964 by an original group of “Seventy-seven countries”; the G77 membership has since increased to 132 however, the original name has been retained essentially for its historic significance. The G77 attains its 50th anniversary in 2014. With a permanent Executive Secretariat located within the UN Headquarters in New York, G77 also has chapters in Geneva, Nairobi, Paris, Rome, Vienna and Washington, D.C.
MINFO