South South Cooperation

The term “South”or “Global South” refers to developing countries, which are located primarily in the Southern Hemisphere. The Global South includes Asia (with the exception of Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan), Central America, South America, Mexico, Africa, and the Middle East (with the exception of Israel). South-South Cooperation (SSC) is about developing countries working together to find solutions to common development challenges. 

Linked by similarities in their development contexts and challenges, the countries of the South have been increasingly active in sharing knowledge, exchanging technologies and forming common agenda and collective actions. South-South cooperation and its agenda have to be set by countries of the South and should continue to be guided by the principles of respect for national sovereignty, national ownership and independence, equality, non-conditionality, non-interference in domestic affairs and mutual benefit, according to http://www.arab-ecis.unsouthsouth.org. 

Wikipedia writes that the formation of SSC can be traced to the Asian–African Conference that took place in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 which is also known as the Bandung Conference. Indonesia's president at that time, Sukarno, referred to it as "the first intercontinental conference of coloured peoples in the history of mankind." 

It was the first time that the countries in attendance were no longer colonies of distant European powers. In 1978, the United Nations established the Unit for South–South Cooperation to promote South–South trade and collaboration within its agencies. However, the idea of South–South cooperation only started to influence the field of development in the late 1990s.  

Developing countries are the agents of action in South-South cooperation – not just as partners, but as leaders of the development process. This process moves away from the paradigm of cooperation as a one-way assistance from donor to recipient – towards a model where emphasis is firmly placed on capacity building, self-reliance, and the sustainable development of countries from the global South, elaborates www.who.int.