General Assembly Session 53 meeting 31

The President

This commemorative meeting of the General Assembly is being held in accordance with the decision adopted at its 3rd plenary meeting on 15 September 1998 and pursuant to resolution 52/205 of 18 December 1997.

I would request that during this meeting of the Assembly we strive to be as brief and concise in our statements as possible, in view of the value that we attach to our time.

We are meeting here today to commemorate a key event in the history of international cooperation for development. The United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, held in Buenos Aires from 30 August to 12 September 1978, was a milestone in the United Nations system's ongoing efforts to promote international cooperation for development, which, as we all know, is one of the primary objectives of the Organization. The Conference adopted the Buenos Aires Plan of Action as a normative framework designed to improve the structure of international relations by placing greater emphasis on the use of the increasing technical and scientific capacities of developing countries in the promotion of socio-economic development in the South.

As the ultimate goal of technical cooperation among developing countries, the Plan establishes, on the one hand, the promotion of national and collective self-reliance among developing countries, and, on the other hand, the fostering of global partnership. Accordingly, for the past 20 years the Buenos Aires Plan of Action has provided a policy framework to enable developing countries to enhance their self-reliance by harnessing and exploiting their own capacities.

To underscore the continued importance of international partnership, the Plan emphasizes that its new proposals are complementary to, not a substitute for, traditional forms of North-South development cooperation. Although it assigns primary responsibility to developing countries for organizing, managing and financing technical cooperation among themselves, the Plan also calls upon the United Nations development system to play a catalytic and promotional role in advancing this cooperation.

The Plan sets forth a number of goals that require developing countries to enhance their creative capacities; share their human and technical resources; upgrade the quality and scope of international cooperation; and expand and refine communications among themselves on the national, subregional, regional and interregional levels.

The continuing validity of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action has been repeatedly reaffirmed by the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and the conferences and governing bodies of many specialized agencies. In particular, General Assembly resolution 46/159 indicates that technical cooperation among developing countries remains a key element in global economic cooperation. In resolution 48/172, the Assembly went further by urging Member States, the United Nations Development Programme and other organizations of the United Nations development system to give high priority and full support to technical cooperation among developing countries.

Since the 1970s, developing countries have increasingly used the technical cooperation framework to strengthen the bonds of cooperation among themselves in the context of formal subregional and regional integration arrangements and through more flexible cooperative exchanges. The developing countries have also sought to promote genuine partnership among themselves on the understanding that each country has resources and capacities that it can share and offer, as well as needs that may be satisfied by others. Many countries have taken the initiative of establishing well-defined policies and appropriate institutional arrangements in order to ensure a coordinated approach and to find common solutions to common problems within the framework of technical cooperation among developing countries. In the wake of recent trends towards globalization, technical cooperation among developing countries is increasingly being recognized as an important instrument for enabling countries of the South to participate effectively in the emerging new world order. This is all the more true given the well-known trend among the industrialized countries to reduce official development assistance, in particular as regards the allocation of funds to multilateral programmes and agencies.

In order that the full potential of technical cooperation among developing countries may be realized and to fulfil the expectations raised 20 years ago by the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, all Member States, developed and developing alike, must seize the current momentum and build upon the past achievements in technical cooperation among developing countries. This will require tireless efforts to make the potential of technical cooperation among developing countries widely understood, to strengthen the effectiveness of normative frameworks, procedures and focal points for technical cooperation among developing countries on the national level, and to promote information-sharing among developing countries at the subregional, regional, interregional and global levels. It will also require the international community to be more forthcoming with financing for activities undertaken within the context of technical cooperation among developing countries.

Thus, this commemorative meeting is an opportune moment for the international community to renew the political will necessary to overcome the factors hindering the optimal utilization of the existing capacities and resources and to accelerate development throughout the developing world. Given the prevailing mix of opportunities and challenges presented by globalization, the potential of such exchanges needs to be fully exploited. The promising prospects of increased trade and investment opportunities in the South are discernible in the current demographic projections, which indicate that, by the year 2025, nearly 7 billion of the projected world population of 8.5 billion people will live in the South -- 7 out of 8.5 billion. This suggests that there is tremendous scope for the South to capitalize on increased market and investment opportunities.

In conclusion, responding to the recommendations of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action in the new context of globalization -- an issue to which this Assembly has been paying particular attention -- requires developed and developing countries to work cooperatively to devise new and improved approaches both for national institutions and on the global scale, so as to promote public and private enterprise, actions by economic players and by States themselves, in order to achieve the lofty objective of technical cooperation among developing countries.

I now give the floor to the Deputy Secretary-General.

The Deputy Secretary-General

We are gathered here to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, in keeping with the General Assembly resolution adopted to that effect last year. Over these two decades, the international community has taken seriously the recommendations contained in the Plan of Action. Against the background of growing disparities between rich and poor countries, the Plan was designed to provide a road map for narrowing that gap.

The Plan urged all partners involved in international development cooperation to bring South-South solutions to shared development challenges by increasing the use of the human capacities and material resources that exist in the South.

South-South cooperation has enjoyed official recognition in the United Nations since the Buenos Aires Conference in 1978. It encompasses two types of partnership: technical cooperation among developing countries and economic cooperation among developing countries. The two interrelated approaches are intended to enable the South to promote collective self-reliance and to participate effectively in the international economic system.

Since the 1970s the benefits of South-South cooperation have been most manifest in the formation of regional groupings across the South. Through regional integration, many countries have expanded their market size, accelerated the pace of industrialization and laid the foundation for a more systematic integration of production structures across national boundaries. While some of these integration schemes have stagnated, many have made steady progress and gained vitality and momentum during the 1980s and 1990s.

The profound changes that have occurred in the international system since the late 1980s have had an equally profound impact on multilateral development cooperation. They have established a new context and a new rationale for promoting technical cooperation and South-South cooperation in general. These developments have underscored the futility of unilateral action in an interdependent world.

Since the 1970s the United Nations has played an important role in promoting technical cooperation. It has provided guidance on policies and procedures. It has supported institutional capacity-building, networking and information systems. Many United Nations organizations and agencies, including regional commissions, have actively promoted policies that place great emphasis on South-South cooperation.

In the area of capacity-building, UNDP has provided support to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Central American Common Market and commodity groups such as the Union of Banana-Exporting Countries in efforts to strengthen their overall capacity. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have provided similar assistance to various regional groupings in the development of national and regional institutions of developing countries in keeping with their respective mandates and expertise.

With support from the United Nations organizations and agencies, improved networking and twinning arrangements have become a significant feature of technical cooperation in recent years. UNESCO has supported educational networks in the Caribbean and fostered exchanges among various scientific organizations worldwide. The ILO has facilitated exchanges among various centres of excellence in the field of labour administration. Using networks to foster food security, FAO has been instrumental in the creation of the Biogas Network in Latin America and has supported the establishment of food crops networks. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has supported a trade information network linking a number of Asian countries in addition to sponsoring the Global Trade Point Network, which applies modern information technology to trade promotion.

Many developed countries have been very supportive of technical cooperation activities initiated by groups of developing countries. Japan, Ireland and South Korea have contributed generously to the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for South-South Cooperation, established in 1995 by the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. Brazil and Chile have set up special funds to assist other developing countries in Latin America within the framework of TCDC. In light of the declining trend in official development assistance, as well as in core resources available to UNDP and other United Nations agencies, increased contributions to the Trust Fund for South-South Cooperation are needed.

The unprecedented changes which have occurred in the international economic system since the 1980s -- principally the globalization of markets and production structures -- make South-South cooperation more valid and relevant than ever as an instrument for helping developing countries to participate effectively in the emerging economic order.

Several challenges lie ahead. First, despite the accelerated differentiation in socio-economic performance among developing countries, we must recognize that the countries of the South still share a number of basic development needs. These include the need for external capital and development assistance; for access to export markets and foreign exchange; for technologies; and for an external economic environment that is fair, predictable and stable.

Secondly, these shared needs establish a new rationale for South-South cooperation. It is one that requires developing countries to pool their human and material resources and to work collectively for a more just, equitable and democratic world system. If the countries of the South are to be masters of their destiny, they need to have an effective voice in all international forums.

Thirdly, given the complex mix of opportunities and challenges presented by globalization, the United Nations system and the international community as a whole must adjust to the demands of the new development context and redouble their efforts in support of technical and economic cooperation.

Fourthly, all organizations and agencies of the United Nations system must implement Economic and Social Council resolution 1992/41. They must ensure that technical and economic cooperation are given first consideration in the design, formulation, implementation and evaluation of their operational activities. The United Nations family should also increase the allocation of resources for technical and economic cooperation from their regular programme budgets. United Nations organizations and agencies should find opportunities to promote joint cooperative arrangements and bring their various sectoral competencies to bear on South-South cooperation activities. Regional Commissions should play an active role in promoting and supporting intra- and interregional activities of strategic importance to subregional and regional groupings.

This meeting, on the eve of the new millennium, provides an opportune moment for the international community to reflect upon the resources, strategies and partnerships that developing countries need to seize the opportunities our globalizing world presents.

In this era of dwindling resources for development, it is critically important to build new partnerships to draw on mutual knowledge and capacities. United Nations organizations and agencies should strengthen contacts with organizations in the developing world and help foster effective participation of the private sector in technical and economic cooperation activities. And I urge all countries to contribute to the Voluntary Trust Fund for South-South Cooperation.

Renewed efforts to advance the goals of South-South cooperation call for a coordinated approach among the entire United Nations family. This session of the General Assembly will be considering a revised version of the guidelines for the review of policies and procedures concerning technical cooperation and the Secretary-General's report on strengthening the integration of technical and economic cooperation approaches to development.

I encourage all members of the United Nations family to include a South-South dimension in their operational activities in keeping with the guidelines once they are endorsed.

The President

I remind representatives that this meeting is exclusively devoted to the commemoration of an important anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action. It is not a regular working meeting to consider in depth the question of South-South technical cooperation. I therefore urge all speakers to manage their time in the most cooperative way possible.

I call first on the representative of Nigeria, who will speak on behalf of the Group of African States.

Mr. Akunwafor (Nigeria)

It is my honour and privilege to make the following statement on behalf of the Group of African States at the United Nations.

Please allow me to congratulate you, Sir, on your recent well-deserved election to the presidency of our General Assembly at its fifty-third session. In Nigeria, my country, and Africa, my continent and region, we have no doubt that the conduct of the Assembly's affairs will benefit a great deal from your experience and wisdom.

Granted that all African States are members of the Non-Aligned Movement and of the Group of 77, whose original idea it was to establish the mechanism for promoting technical cooperation among developing countries (TCDC), my brief remarks this morning would not be properly rooted should we fail to recall that Africa's love for and faith in the necessity and potential of TCDC date back to 1977, one year ahead of the birth of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action. Meeting at its twenty-ninth ordinary session in Libreville, Gabon, in July 1977, the Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) first recognized that

"TCDC is a historical imperative brought about by the need for a new international order" [and] "a conscious, systematic and politically motivated process developed to create a framework of multiple links between developing countries".

Within the same July 1977, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU endorsed the Ministers' recommendations, which were again reaffirmed by the OAU Council of Ministers in July 1978 at their thirty-first ordinary session, held in Khartoum, Sudan. Consequently, the then nearly 50 OAU member delegations became part and parcel of the delegations from 138 States which, in Buenos Aires on 12 September 1978, adopted by consensus a plan of action now known as the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries.

What subsequently gladdened the hearts of all Africans -- and, I must add, the hearts of citizens of all developing countries -- was that singular display of wisdom and sensitivity on the part of this Assembly in December 1978, when it resolved to endorse the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, as it concerns the development needs of more than two thirds of United Nations membership, and urged all Governments and elements of the United Nations system to implement its recommendations.

Today, two decades later and on the threshold of a new millennium, the twentieth anniversary of the blueprint Buenos Aires Plan of Action should afford us all not just an opportunity to roll out the drums and beat our chests in celebration of the achievements we have made. Today, and equally importantly, we all should undergo a sober reflection, stocktaking and candid inward search that will show us concretely how much we ought to have achieved and the problems or further challenges we need to overcome.

Mr. Akunwafor (Nigeria)

Indeed, nothing implies the importance of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action more than the words of our good friend and the highly resourceful outgoing Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Mr. James Gustav Speth, when he reminded us in May this year that, for the developing countries, TCDC and South-South cooperation are no longer options, but imperatives in our age of globalization. As we celebrate, we are therefore justifiably joyful that UNDP has not abandoned the lot of the developing countries. Particularly through its Special Unit for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries and its prolific publicity literature, UNDP has helped in no small measure to increase awareness of the importance of TCDC and the development needs of the developing countries. As a reliable catalyst and active partner of national Governments and organizations and agencies of the United Nations system, the Special Unit has been promoting and monitoring the global application of TCDC in a variety of ways, including sponsorship of TCDC activities-based studies and assessments, enhancement of national capacities for the management of TCDC, and matching capacities with needs.

It is out of such sensitization and enhancement efforts that a number of countries have come to allocate significant resources for TCDC activities from their national budgets and/or UNDP country allocations. It is out of such efforts that research -- for instance, into medicinal plants in one of the South countries -- has recently yielded a welcome lead into the network research and management of the menace of the sickle-cell disease in some other developing countries, thus raising hope for a definite cure some day. We are also happy that complementarities of natural endowments among the developing countries and their varying stages of development, as highlighted in the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, have deepened technical cooperation among some countries in the South, thus providing them with vast opportunities for knowledge transfer or exchange with relative ease and at less expense than if they had had to acquire similar knowledge from the developed countries.

Neither must we fail to acknowledge at this gathering the supporting and positive role being similarly played by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for the promotion of South-South trade and finance, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Non-Aligned Movement and the South Centre in support of the G-77 initiatives for cooperation.

In conclusion, let me return to a point made in our earlier outline. As we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, we will be doing our collective memory and posterity a great favour if we also spare a little time to highlight areas which our best of efforts might have neither reached nor yielded desired results from.

First, even a full-course intra-South technical cooperation programme, involving all developing countries, would still need official development assistance to succeed in achieving its goal. The continuing decline of success in achieving the agreed target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product for official development assistance, which is a major external source for the financing of development, therefore needs to be reversed in order to enable TCDC to have the crucial input to infrastructural and social sector development from the developed countries.

Secondly, and made even worse by the recent adverse global financial crisis, all developing countries, especially the 40 least developed among them, most of which are in Africa, are being severely hindered in their cooperating efforts by excruciatingly heavy external debt burdens. This handicap is especially bad for the heavily indebted poor countries. One of the many measures to alleviate its negative impact lies in the conversion of debt to promote development investments, in accordance with the needs of developing countries.

Thirdly, market access to exports from developing countries is one crucial component that will enhance the capacity of each developing country to cooperate more gainfully and meaningfully. The current international trading system will assist developing countries, especially those producing commodities, more gainfully if, and only if, the system is made multilaterally equitable, secure, non-discriminatory and predictable in its rules and thereby capable of enhancing the economic capacity of the developing countries concerned.

These are the barest minimum of core needs of the developing countries. If they are properly addressed, and if there is the required increase in core resources for United Nations Development Programme funding, as we are about to enter the twenty-first year of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, a means will be generated to eradicate poverty and appropriately protect and empower the citizenry of developing countries to access the benefits of globalization in an interdependent world.

The Acting President

I call next on the representative of Nepal, who will speak on behalf of the Group of Asian States.

Mr. Shah (Nepal)

I will heed the President's repeated advice and be as brief as possible.

On behalf of the member States of the Asian Group, I should like to pay our tribute to the spirit and efforts of the 138 countries which adopted the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries 20 years ago in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Today is an occasion to renew our commitment and to reaffirm the continued relevance of South-South cooperation, with the ultimate objective of building a more equitable global partnership for development and peace. It is also an occasion for all of us to review not only the achievements of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, but, more important, the lessons learned from its implementation.

In the 20 years since the adoption of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, profound and almost unrecognizable changes have taken place in international relations. Greater interdependence in the world, brought about by globalization and economic liberalization, is posing new challenges and risks, but it also provides a new impetus and a new rationale for closer cooperation among nations. We believe that further strengthening of South-South cooperation is an essential instrument for ensuring the equitable participation of developing countries in the emerging global economy.

The Acting President

I call on the representative of Poland, who will speak on behalf of the Group of Eastern European States.

Mr. Wyzner (Poland)

I am privileged to offer a few observations today on behalf of the Group of Eastern European States.

Twenty years ago the United Nations Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries and the adoption of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries marked a new perception of the environment needed for international dialogue on technical cooperation. For a long time this cooperation had been concentrated almost exclusively along traditional lines of North-South partnership, while the growing potential of the developing countries themselves had not been fully taken into consideration. The Buenos Aires Conference generated a new type of international relations, based on closer regional exchange of experiences between developing countries, with the use of a special technical cooperation among developing countries (TCDC) modality anchored in the operational activities of the United Nations system.

In the last two decades a number of developing countries have emerged as areas of considerable economic development and as important sources of technological innovation. We note with satisfaction the increasing economic potential of the South, which is becoming an important player in the world economy. On the other hand, this fact reinforces both the opportunities and the further need of the developing countries to forge the links of cooperation among themselves. To this end, TCDC offers effective tools for an exchange of experiences in technical cooperation and problem-solving between developing countries in pursuit of their mutual interests with the final goal of increasing the competitiveness of their economies in the global markets. At the same time, regional cooperation serves well the purpose of winning the support of civil societies for national policies, as it is easier for them to relate to regional problems before they look beyond these to global ones.

We are pleased to note that the United Nations has played a crucial role in the process of implementing the TCDC modality in the operational activities of the system. Special credit should be given to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for incorporating these practices in programmes realized with a wide variety of partners on local levels and for establishing a Trust Fund which serves to intensify South-South cooperation.

By endorsing the Buenos Aires Plan of Action in its resolution of 1978, the General Assembly gave tangible proof of the commitment of the international community to the spirit and the ultimate objective of the Plan. On a later occasion the General Assembly endorsed new directions to strengthen TCDC's role in offering technical advice for developmental activities. At the same time, the Economic and Social Council recommended that first consideration be given to TCDC for use in development efforts in the United Nations system as well as with all other partners. As a result, intensified actions by several entities of the United Nations system, such as UNDP, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and some of the regional economic commissions were undertaken to include TCDC in the mainstream of their activities. However, a lot of work has yet to be done in this field, and it is our belief that strengthening of the TCDC has to be encouraged as an inherent part of developing effective regional cooperation.

Taking into account the views expressed in the Agenda for Development, as well as the position taken last year by the General Assembly in its resolution on economic and technical cooperation among developing countries, we believe that the United Nations system should continue its efforts to strengthen South-South cooperation, which, to quote from that resolution, "constitutes an important element of international cooperation for development and is an essential basis for national and collective self-reliance as well as a means of ensuring the effective integration and participation of developing countries in the world economy and ... is not a substitute for, but rather complementary to, North-South cooperation". (resolution 52/205, para. 2)

In the Group of Eastern European States we realize that there is considerable unexplored potential for forming new partnership ties among the countries of the South and the countries of our Group. There is also a need to extend these links beyond the old divisions of South and North or East and West. On this solemn occasion, we reaffirm our commitment to achieving that goal in the years to come, in accordance with the theme of our meeting today, "Towards a global partnership for South-South cooperation" in the new millennium.

The Acting President

I now call on the representative of the Dominican Republic, who will speak on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States.

Mrs. Aguiar (Dominican Republic)

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