By Biswajit Nag and - -
NEW DELHI, Apr 23 2008 (IPS)

(IPS/South Center) Over the years South-South Cooperation (SSC) has evolved from merely sharing technical know-how to cooperation for a comprehensive socio-economic transformation, writes Biswajit Nag, Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, India. In this article, Nag writes that in the new millennium SSC seeks to harness the intellectual capital and technological advances accumulated by developing countries to find the southern solutions embedded in people, technology, alliances, and the forces of globalisation. Regional cooperation provides most developing countries with a platform to seek regional solutions for the challenges of globalisation. Though trade and investment are at the core of any regional cooperation, the environment, health, and education have also drawn attention. The Asian experience of regional cooperation is useful because most of the programmes attempt to convince national governments to include the regional agenda to benefit both the country and the region.

In the new millennium, SSC seeks to harness the intellectual capital and technological advances accumulated by developing countries to find the southern solutions embedded in people, technology, alliances, and the forces of globalisation.

Regional cooperation in the broader sense provides most developing countries with a platform to seek regional solutions for the challenges of globalisation.

Though trade and investment are at the core of any regional cooperation, other areas – such as the environment, health, and education – have also drawn attention during the discussions among several development groups.

The process of economic integration in Asia is taking a very different route from that of the European Union. Europe’s successful economic and monetary integration has been achieved because of gradual and pragmatic sequencing that involved modest initial steps within a long-term vision. Asian integration, in contrast, moved fast in the midst of globalisation. The EU made a priority of building supranational institutions like the European Court of Justice, European Central Bank, etc. The Asian process advanced with small secretariats of ASEAN, SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation), and others, and was driven mostly by individual governmental ministries, which made the entire exercise less expensive than for the EU.

The EU integration process is carried out mainly through regulations, most of which are binding and backed by a system of sanctions. In contrast, the Asian regional frameworks issue non-binding ”declarations” and ”plans of action” which are more appropriate to Asian countries’ wide variation in economic and political structures.

Moreover, Asian blocs always have granted ”special and differential” treatment for least developed country (LDC) members, which helps them to integrate with the process at a slower pace. For many developing countries the Asian model could be a learning experience.

To face the challenges of globalisation, and to facilitate co-operation in trade and investment, regional cooperation in transport and information technology and communications (ITC) is essential through a proper, well-integrated policy that takes into account the socio-economic and environmental impacts.

Since the early 1990s, there has been a notable increase in co-operation amongst nations in Asia and the Pacific. Most regional groups, such as ASEAN, SAARC, the Pacific Islands Forum, and ECO have action plans to improve transport in their respective subregions.

SSC is visible in the transport sector among countries to improve transport infrastructure and facilities, develop logistical capabilities, remove non-physical barriers, reform transport services by formulating clear policy guidelines, and develop human and institutional capacities.

On the other hand SAARC has given due importance to telecommunications and has joint programmes with Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for development in this sector.

To face challenges in socio-economic areas, Asian countries have developed a number of regional projects in the SSC mode. Covering one of the poorest sub-regions in the world, SAARC has developed SAARC Development Goals (SDGs) in the areas of livelihood, health, education, and environment, which were endorsed in 2005.

Through a SSC mode, SAARC has prepared a regional poverty profile, collecting different poverty-eradication and employment-generation strategies involving independent institutions, universities, intellectuals, government agencies, etc, in different SAARC member countries. People’s participation in preparing this has generated confidence in seeking practical strategies to address the issue.

The environment is a priority area for SSC in the region. All groups have elaborate environmental programmes. Understanding that the environment is a public good, regional cooperation has been identified as a major mode for managing wide-ranging issues regarding the environment and sustainable development and is more efficient than countries acting individually. SAARC has endeavoured to adopt a common position on World Summit on Sustainable Development issues which called for the preparation of national state-of-the-environment reports, circulation of the latest national action plan on environment, provision of a list of national forestry institutions, holding a workshop on climate change, and consideration of a regional treaty on the environment, etc.

SAARC countries are also involved in working out a common approach for access to genetic resources and establishing a co-operative framework for biosafety. Countries would also like to focus on the protection of traditional knowledge in the context of the WTO and safeguard the interests of the region’s bio-diversity. SAARC and ASEAN have proposed to join hands on energy issues.

SSC through regional cooperation has one advantage: it may adopt the bottom-up rather than the top-down approach in order to best understand the needs of different countries. The possibility of agreeing a common approach in a regional forum is relatively high. This reduces implementation problems and can address the duplication issues to some extent. Issues that cut across many borders can be addressed more easily as countries have fairly good idea about each other’s problems, such as, environmental impact, socio-economic impact, analysis of transport sector development, the use of ITC in trade facilitation, and the impact of tourism in poverty eradication.

The Asian experience of regional cooperation is useful because most of the programmes attempt to convince national governments to include the regional agenda in order to benefit both the country and the region. Regular meetings of high-level officials make the process more inclusive in Asia. Thus, streamlining a regional agenda through national policies has become easier. People’s participation in project development has also helped significantly. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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