UN Committee on South-South Cooperation to meet
The UN Committee on South-South Cooperation will meet to decide on a proposal to become a regional conference.
Today’s meeting comes as the Committee, which presides over Latin America and the Caribbean, looks to promote international economic development cooperation. It follows years of work by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) to assist developing countries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
An immediate implication of a status change would create two distinct subsidiary bodies: the committee and conference. Notably, the transition would alleviate pressure, time and the resources of ECLA by allowing the conference to focus on broad cooperation agendas, while leaving negotiation details to the committee—streamlining discussions on economic development, regional responses and policy coherence.
Expect today’s meeting to focus on improving institutional capacities to assist national development policies, strategies and programs. As such, the Committee will likely approve the proposal following the meeting.
In the short-term, however, as the pandemic worsens and socio-economic trends regress, such changes alone are unlikely to facilitate greater intra-regional cooperation. In a region marred by structural inequalities, wealth gaps and widespread unrest, the coronavirus has also disrupted major long-term development efforts and severed hopes of achieving the SDGs by 2030.
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