South-South and Triangular Cooperation - AfDB

Enhancing regional cooperation in Africa is one of the AfDB’s key strategic priorities under the Medium Term Strategy for 2008-2012, as is developing intra and interregional cooperation among middle income coun­tries (MICs) and least developed countries (LDCs).

In March 2011, the Board of Directors of the AfDB approved an agreement between the Federative Republic of Brazil on the establishment of the South-South Cooperation Trust Fund (SSCTF). The objective of the South- South Cooperation Trust Fund is to support African countries in mobilizing and taking advantage of develop­ment solutions and technical expertise available in the South. The Fund will also seek to promote South-South partnerships and knowledge sharing among MICs and between MICs and LDCs in Africa. The ultimate goal is to introduce and implement solutions in all the areas of focus that can actually have a high development impact.

The areas of focus include: a) Agriculture and Agri-business; b) Private Sector Development; c) Clean energy/ Environment.

The fund supports: i) Provision of technical assistance in the preparation of policy and sector studies, research and analysis;ii) Capacity building and human resources development; iii) Organization of seminars, work­shops, conferences and consultations and knowledge sharing of experiences and, iv) Implementation and piloting of innovative approaches to solve development challenges in RMCs.

The fund is used to finance South-South cooperation initiatives and activities to benefit the Bank’s RMCs. The fund is utilized to facilitate South-South knowledge sharing, learning from best practices, know-how and approaches developed, applied and proven useful by countries in the South. These activities can range from facilitating relatively small scale knowledge exchange projects within the South (e.g. South-South cooper­ation database and publications, technical exchange programmes, field trips, South-South knowledge shar­ing seminars, etc.) to supporting the identification of South-South cooperation opportunities and the imple­mentation of more extensive cooperation programs, involving two or more countries of the South, aimed at addressing key development issues.