Delegates at the opening of the Bandung Conference in 1955. Image from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
South-South cooperation is cooperation among developing countries to expand capacities, exchange knowledge, coordinate political positions and respond to shared problems. The expression covers two connected levels. At the technical level, it appears in training missions and in the adaptation of public policies. At the diplomatic level, it supports flexible coalitions, from IBSA to BRICS. The central point is to turn experiences of development, external vulnerability and peripheral position in the world system into instruments of collective action.
In a narrow sense, South-South cooperation often means technical cooperation for development. Public-sector specialists exchange methods, institutions adapt programs and governments turn national experiences into transferable solutions. In a broader sense, it includes political coordination among states of the Global South. The same expression links an operational development practice to a diplomatic language of autonomy, solidarity and reform of the international order.
Summary
- South-South cooperation is cooperation among developing countries, guided by sovereignty, national ownership, equality, non-conditionality, non-intervention and mutual benefit.
- The Bandung Conference, decolonization and the activity of Southern states at the UN gave the idea its political basis, while the Buenos Aires Plan of Action of 1978 institutionalized technical cooperation among developing countries.
- The United Nations system, especially UNDP and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, helped turn technical cooperation into a permanent agenda.
- The Nairobi outcome document of 2009 consolidated the contemporary definition and reinforced that South-South cooperation complements North-South cooperation.
- Forums such as IBSA, BRICS and the G20 finance track show that South-South cooperation can be technical, economic and political, although those formats are not identical.
- The main debate sets the South’s own principles against pressure to fit these initiatives into the metrics and obligations of traditional aid from developed countries.
What Does South-South Cooperation Mean?
The most useful definition starts with a simple distinction. Traditional foreign aid, especially in the form of Official Development Assistance, usually flows from developed countries to developing countries and is measured by criteria set in organizations such as the OECD. South-South cooperation presents the relationship differently: countries that share development challenges seek adaptable solutions, with less emphasis on a formal hierarchy between donor and recipient. The political framing of the relationship matters as much as the origin of the resources.
That distinction coexists with inequalities inside the Global South itself. Large emerging countries have much greater financial, technological and diplomatic scale than small island states or low-income African countries. Even so, South-South language tries to avoid the vertical image of assistance. It describes cooperation as exchange among partners, with learning situated on both sides of the relationship.
In practice, that exchange circulates capacities. One country may turn an agricultural, health or education policy into training for another. On another front, governments use cooperation to coordinate votes and defend international financial reforms. The common element is the attempt to use experiences produced within the developing world itself as a diplomatic and technical resource.
Origins: Bandung, the UN and Development
The political roots of South-South cooperation lie in decolonization after the Second World War. The Asian-African Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 brought together countries that were newly independent or still struggling against colonialism. The conference gave political language to a durable idea: countries in Asia and Africa could discuss development, sovereignty and autonomy without depending entirely on colonial powers or Cold War blocs.
That context changed the United Nations. As more developing countries entered the General Assembly, the economic agenda no longer revolved only around aid and security. Trade, industrialization, financing and productive sovereignty began to appear as dimensions of the same problem. The notion of “technical assistance” seemed inadequate to many Southern governments because of the unequal relationship it implied between those who knew and those who received. In 1959, the General Assembly preferred the expression “technical cooperation”, emphasizing mutual interests and benefits.
In the 1970s, the agenda advanced. The General Assembly created a working group on technical cooperation among developing countries and adopted resolutions asking the United Nations system to support that kind of exchange. UNDP became a recurring operational platform by connecting governments, technical resources and development projects without turning every initiative into conventional bilateral aid. Institutionalization began when the political solidarity of decolonization was translated into technical mechanisms for capacity-building and implementation.
The Buenos Aires Plan of Action
The main landmark was the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, held in Buenos Aires in 1978. It produced the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, known as BAPA. The document organized technical cooperation as an agenda able to operate at several scales. Bilateral projects, regional arrangements and interregional initiatives became part of a common repertoire for institutional strengthening and development problem-solving.
BAPA mattered for two reasons. First, it stated that cooperation among developing countries should strengthen national and collective capacities instead of functioning as an empty diplomatic gesture. Second, it made clear that South-South cooperation complemented North-South cooperation. The political message was precise: countries of the South wanted to cooperate with one another and refused to let that cooperation become a pretext for reducing developed countries’ responsibilities in financing and technology.
The plan established principles that remain central. Its “horizontal” language brings sovereignty, equality and respect for national priorities together with adaptation to local needs. The term coexists with material asymmetries and defines a design rule: a project should avoid political conditionalities, imposed ready-made models and external management of national priorities. Horizontality is a governance norm, not a perfect picture of the partners’ material power.
Nairobi and Contemporary Principles
In 2009, the United Nations High-level Conference on South-South Cooperation, held in Nairobi, updated the vocabulary. Its outcome document defined South-South cooperation as a common effort by peoples and countries of the South, based on shared experiences, common objectives and solidarity. The operational definition shifted attention toward the circulation of capacities: applied knowledge, institutional resources and regional coordination were to serve objectives defined by the partners themselves.
The principles reinforced in Nairobi form the basis of the current concept. National sovereignty, local ownership, independent decision-making and mutual benefit support the resistance of many Southern countries to metrics copied from traditional official aid. South-South cooperation can and should be assessed by criteria sensitive to local demand, technical exchange and the absence of conditionality.
Nairobi also consolidated triangular cooperation. In this format, developing countries lead the partnership and receive support from a developed country or a multilateral organization. The arrangement expands scale and resources when demand, leadership and ownership remain with Southern actors.
BAPA+40 and the 2030 Agenda
In 2019, Buenos Aires hosted the second United Nations High-level Conference on South-South Cooperation, known as BAPA+40. The meeting marked the fortieth anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action and linked South-South cooperation to the 2030 Agenda. That connection reflected a practical requirement: the Sustainable Development Goals depend on public capacities connected to financing, technology and international partnerships. Without state capacity and regional coordination, the 2030 Agenda becomes a list of goals without sufficient means of implementation.
The 2019 debate revived older tensions. The G77 and China defended the preservation of principles specific to South-South cooperation. Developed countries sought to bring this cooperation closer to the criteria of Official Development Assistance and the aid effectiveness agenda. The final text preserved the distinct identity of South-South cooperation and left room for more complex arrangements, in which triangulation, regional organizations, debt sustainability and the UN system function as means of implementation.
That update preserved ambiguities. The 2030 Agenda values partnerships, and current projects bring together public, financial, business and multilateral actors with different incentives. The contemporary challenge is to preserve national ownership and mutual benefit in increasingly hybrid arrangements, where private and multilateral resources enter initiatives presented as South-South cooperation.
Brazil and the Parameters of South-South Cooperation
Brazil usually presents its South-South cooperation as horizontal, demand-driven and non-conditional. In Brazilian diplomatic practice, the decisive point is the demand from the partner country. From that demand, the project should be adapted to the local context, use joint governance and avoid selling commercial packages as if they were public cooperation. The Brazilian Cooperation Agency acts as an articulator, while sectoral bodies and technical institutions provide applied experience.
This posture has political roots. Under the Lula governments, cooperation with Africa, Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries gained prominence as part of a foreign policy oriented toward diversified partnerships and the value of the Global South. Agricultural projects, anti-hunger policies, public health and technical training were presented as examples of Brazilian experiences being transferred, not as the imposition of universal models.
Brazil defended its own parameters in debates on aid effectiveness. The Paris Declaration, the Accra Agenda for Action and the Busan Partnership, linked to the OECD agenda for effective development cooperation, sought to improve coordination among funders, partner governments and measurable results. For countries such as Brazil, those forums emerged from a logic centered on traditional donors. Brazilian diplomacy accepted dialogue with the effectiveness agenda and resisted turning South-South cooperation into a simple subcategory of North-South aid.
Examples: IBSA, BRICS, China and Technical Cooperation
IBSA is a clear example of overlap between political coordination and development cooperation. Created by India, Brazil and South Africa, the forum brings together coordination on multilateral issues, trilateral cooperation among the three members and projects directed at other developing countries. The IBSA Fund for the Alleviation of Poverty and Hunger, managed by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, finances social projects defined by local demand and without traditional conditionalities. The forum illustrates how a diplomatic coalition can generate concrete instruments of technical cooperation.
BRICS points to another dimension. The group operates as a political-diplomatic platform of emerging economies that seek more voice in global governance, finance, trade and technology. The New Development Bank, created by BRICS, expresses the attempt to expand financing options for infrastructure and sustainable development. BRICS is a specific form of South-South coordination: powerful, institutionalized in some respects and crossed by its members’ own national interests.
China greatly expanded the material weight of South-South cooperation. Its infrastructure, financing, trade and training projects give scale to the subject and generate debate. For some countries, China offers alternatives to traditional banks and donors. For others, Chinese involvement raises risks of financial dependency, contractual asymmetry and political influence. China’s expansion shows that the label “South-South” has to be assessed through project design, financial conditions and the partner’s room for decision.
Differences from North-South Aid
The difference between South-South cooperation and North-South aid goes beyond the participants. It lies in the political framing. North-South aid usually emphasizes the transfer of financial resources from rich donors to developing countries, with metrics for volume, transparency and results. South-South cooperation emphasizes shared experiences, technical capacities, adapted solutions and solidarity among countries facing similar problems.
Those boundaries are movable. Southern countries can finance large projects, offer credit, export companies and seek influence. Developed countries can support useful projects without abusive conditionalities. The distinction works better as an ideal type than as a moral label. The decisive assessment asks who defines the demand, who controls implementation, which conditions accompany the resources and whether the project strengthens local capacities.
That question is especially important in triangular cooperation. When a European or multilateral agency finances a project led by Brazil, India or South Africa in a third country, the arrangement can use Northern resources alongside Southern experience. It approaches the South-South logic when the beneficiary country has a real voice, the Southern partner acts as a co-lead and the design avoids external conditionalities.
Debates and Limits
South-South cooperation has force through the symbolic and practical alternatives it offers. It allows developing countries to learn from policies applied in contexts of fiscal constraint, social inequality and incomplete state capacity. That repertoire expands diplomatic room for maneuver: a country with more technical and political partners can negotiate better with the North, multilateral banks and transnational companies.
At the same time, there are limits. Solidarity does not eliminate national interests. Governments use cooperation to open markets, gain prestige, dispute regional leadership, support national companies or build coalitions in international votes. That does not make the cooperation false; it makes less romantic analysis necessary. South-South cooperation is simultaneously an instrument of solidarity, foreign policy and national development.
Measurement is another limit. Many Southern countries record their projects by technical hours, scholarships, training, debt forgiveness, public financing or institutional missions instead of using Official Development Assistance accounting. That makes comparison with traditional aid difficult. The solution is to improve transparency without erasing the conceptual difference between horizontal partnership and a donor-recipient relationship.
Current Meaning
Today, South-South cooperation appears wherever development depends on public capacity and technical adaptation. This applies to SDG implementation, health and agricultural policies, energy transition, digital infrastructure, debt and technological governance. Its political dimension appears in disputes over representation: Southern countries demand more voice in the Security Council, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and climate forums. Technical cooperation and reform of the international order remain connected as national capacity and institutional voice reinforce one another.
The concept should be used precisely. A project among developing countries is not automatically beneficial, and cooperation with developed countries is not automatically incompatible with autonomy. Even so, South-South cooperation names an important historical change: countries once treated as passive recipients began to offer knowledge, financing, coalitions and models of their own. Its diplomatic meaning lies in turning peripheral experience into collective capacity for action.
In short, South-South cooperation is more than aid among poor countries. It is a field of technical practices, a political language and a strategy of autonomy. Its promise lies in mutual benefit and local adaptation. Its risk lies in the inequality that can exist inside the South itself. Understanding both sides is essential for evaluating its examples, principles and real effects on development.