Geneva, Switzerland
22-26 November 2010
The Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) 2010 will be held at the International Labour Organization Headquarters.
A host of complex and cross-cutting challenges, including persistent poverty, energy and food scarcity, climate change, global health pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, and a lack of social protections for vulnerable populations are few of the obstructions faced by the South collectively, which call for synergistic action. While much of the world has faced difficulty in their efforts to combat these challenges, several countries of the South have seen major successes in realizing achievements in reducing extreme poverty, improving school enrolment and child health, and expanding access to clean water, malaria control and HIV/AIDS treatment.
These breakthroughs demonstrate that the MDGs are indeed achievable and can potentially provide a roadmap for Southern countries that are in comparable circumstances and face similar challenges. “Developing countries have many lessons learned and useful technologies which can assist their peers to meet their development challenges”, says Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator. “Developmentally-focused South-South flows of finance, technology, and know-how must be recognized and further encouraged as an increasingly important dimension of development co-operation.”
The GSSD Expo is designed as a concrete response to the strong commitment made by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UNDP Administrator to help the Global South realize its shared aspirations for achieving sustainable and equitable development through the sharing and transfer of Southern-grown development solutions. “The growing trend among Southern countries to look not only to reducing poverty within their own borders but also to raise the development prospects of other developing countries is exhibited across a range of countries, including strong emerging economies and other South-South pivotal countries,” says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The GSSD Expo enables developing countries and their development partners - including donor agencies, organizations of the United Nations system, and private-sector and civil society organizations – to collaborate and showcase their evidence-based South-South development solutions. It provides a powerful platform for Southern development actors to celebrate successes, share knowledge and lessons learned, explore new avenues for collaboration and initiate new collaborative efforts towards achieving the objectives set forth in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other internationally agreed development goals. In addition, the GSSD Expo facilitates the forging of innovative and inclusive partnerships for South-South cooperation, including triangular and public-private partnerships. Since its inception in 2008, the GSSD Expo has featured contributions from hundreds of partner countries, United Nations agencies, private sector enterprises and civil society organizations - and over 100 Southern development solutions relevant to achieving the MDGs have been showcased.
This year, we would like to encourage both individuals and organizations to register for the GSSD Expo at the official website (www.southsouthexpo.org) and nominate solutions in five thematic areas: (1) Food Security; (2) Climate Change and Environment; (3) Global Health; (4) HIV/AIDS; and (5) Social Protection. Through our collective action, the GSSD Expo can offer successful and scalable development solutions to the broader community and achieve progress realizing the shared goal of sustainable and equitable development.
For further information, please contact the Secretariat:
Special Unit for South-South Cooperation
United Nations Development Programme
304 East 45th Street, New York, NY 10017
Tel. 212-906-6944
Fax. 212-906-6429
Email: gssdexpo.secretariat@undp.org
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