On the eve of Buenos Aires Plan of Action +40 - South-South cooperation in today's geopolitical context

Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, during his years as the Chairman of the South Commission and then the South Centre, often used to say: “The South must stand up and be counted”. In its efforts to do so, in addition to many practical obstacles and problems, the South would also encounter opposition and doubts within its own ranks, not to mention a frontal or undercover resistance by actors from the North. This resistance would especially come from those who would consider every major move in that direction as a potential threat to their own interests and global designs, and would, very likely, take steps, including within individual developing countries, often with local support and even via “inconvenient” regime change, to influence and embroil the collective efforts.

What matters, however, is that today the Global South has the resources and collective power to stand up and move forward, and that this is not a “mission impossible”, as some who are familiar with problems and difficulties encountered in South--South cooperation efforts and undertakings and the building and management of joint institutions might point out. There is little that stands in the way of:

¦ Undertaking a critical, in-depth review and analysis of: South--South cooperation, important actions and proposals agreed on over the years and their implementation, experiences, public attitudes, performance of individual countries, functioning of joint institutions and mechanisms of cooperation and integration, main obstacles and shortcomings that call for action, including the all too frequent difficulties or failure to follow up on important decisions taken at the political level.

¦ Focusing on how to resolve the issue of lack of adequate financing for South-- South cooperation, activities, projects and institutions, probably one of the most serious practical obstacles standing in the way of SSC being put into practice as desired and called for Obstacles in financing common institutions and projects are many and often petty. Once more a Mwalimu Nyerere experience in trying to fund the South Centre throws some useful light on this problem. While the financing of the South Commission's work, based on one-time contributions by individual developing countries, functioned smoothly, the financing of the South Centre was an entirely different matter. Aware of the likely problems with regular financing and the fact that most developing countries would not be able to accede to an intergovernmental agreement that would require them to contribute financially on a mandatory and regular basis, it was decided that the Centre was to be financed by an investment income from a $30 million trust fund. It was felt that this sum could be mobilized within the South with Mwalimu Nyerere in person leading the fund-raising effort. The whole process started successfully and one-third of the proposed sum was secured. But, when the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997, both regular financing of the Centre and fund raising for the Capital Fund were adversely affected. Despondent, Mwalimu Nyerere often sighed: “I only wish I had a rich uncle!” He did not enjoy going around with a begging bowl from one developing leader to another, most of them unable to act due to administrative and/or budgetary limitations. Although already quite ill, only a few months before his death in 1999, Nyerere visited Muammar Qaddafi in the hope of getting a major contribution for the South Centre Capital Fund. He left empty- handed. The Capital Fund never approached the target figure and the Centre had to be financed by voluntary contributions of willing member states. This produced a situation similar to the voluntary funding experience in the UN, namely uncertain funding and some contributing countries claiming that they are entitled to have a greater say in the Organization's work and operation. Due to the lack of regular finance and financial uncertainty, which thwarted institutional growth and consolidation, the Centre's small staff had to devote a good deal of effort and energy to fund-raising. This, no doubt, detracted from the substantive work and activities of the small institution. In conclusion, the lessons of funding provided by the experience of the South Commission and the South Centre, and, in general, of South--South's activities, including those of the Group of 77 and NAM, merit careful scrutiny and analysis in approaching future South--South cooperation activities and mechanisms and ways how to finance them..

¦ Inspiring, informing about and involving in the South--South cooperation project the public and individuals; with this in mind, applying capacity-building and training to raise the awareness of the existing experiences and opportunities; using to this end also educational, marketing, media and public relations approaches, which are so common in contemporary society and are used not only to advertise and publicize goods and services, but also political and social goals and causes, in this case the common identity of the South as an entity.

¦ Setting up a South organization for South--South cooperation, and pooling together and networking intellectual and analytical resources available in the South and internationally to staff and support the work of that institution Another Nyerere anecdote illustrates his views on the vital importance of institutions for South-- South cooperation. In the South Commission there was no consensus on the need to create a major institution for South--South cooperation, an “OECD of the South”, as some of its members argued. Still, the Commission did manage to agree on and recommend the setting up of a South Secretariat, a modest institution of 30 or so professionals [The Challenge to the South 1990: 200--205]. But, aware of the likely difficulties and opposition from some quarters to the very idea of setting up a “secretariat”, it provided a safety valve. The Commission de facto extended its own life temporarily by setting up the South Centre as its two-year follow-up mechanism, chaired by Mwalimu Nyerere. In June 1992, the “former Commissioners” met at a “Two Years After” Meeting to consider what the Chairman and the Centre had done to promote the South Commission's Report and to discuss the response of governments to the recommendation for the establishment of a South Secretariat. Given the lack of encouraging signs on the institutional front and repeated demands by some heads of state for the extension of the South Centre's life, on the grounds of the valuable support it had provided both to G77 and NAM during the intervening two-year period, it was decided to authorize Mwalimu Nyerere to try to transform the Centre into a permanent institution. After a major and complex effort and with Indonesia playing a vital role in its capacity of NAM Chairman, including through financing the Centre's operational costs and activities on behalf of NAM, and negotiating with Swiss authorities the organization's permanent status in Geneva, this was achieved successfully. In 1994, the intergovernmental agreement establishing the new organization was signed by 44 developing countries at the G77 Ministerial Meeting in New York. The South Centre was formally launched as an intergovernmental organization in September 1995, after the required number of ratifications of the Agreement. In the period that followed, Chairman Mwalimu Nyerere often said in private that the Centre was his “baby” and most important legacy for the cause of the South. With his well-known passion and enthusiasm, he began to work on the Centre's institutional consolidation and placing it on solid foundations, in the hope that it was only the first step towards a major organization of the South that would match the North's OECD in importance and influence. His sudden and early death in 1999 interrupted this quest, but Nyerere left as his legacy a structure, institutional memory, and institution-building learning and experience, a solid foundation on which to work on establishing a major South--South organization..

¦ Placing on the agenda the challenge of intellectual self-empowerment of the Global South and the harnessing of its intellectual resources and institutions into an interactive network for support of common goals and collective actions.

¦ Evolving, at the highest level, a representative system of political authority (e.g., heads of state or government, one delegated from each region) for regular and ad hoc communication, consultations and contacts, for meetings to assess progress in the implementation of agreed SSC goals, and for communication/interaction with all heads of state and/or government in the Global South.

¦ Based on the workings and experience of the South Commission, of the now defunct UN Committee on Development Planning and of the G77 High-Level Panel of Eminent Personalities of the South, to consider establishing a permanent South--South commission or committee to bring together, on a regular basis, high-stature personalities and thinkers from the South to reflect and deliberate on challenges faced by the developing countries and by the international community The South Commission Secretariat was headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh of India. His career included university professorship, a stint as a UN official (interestingly he worked with Raul Prebisch in the UNCTAD Secretariat in the early days) and national service as Chairman of India's Planning Commission before he assumed the posts of the member of the South Commission and its Secretary- General. Singh went on to become the longest serving Prime Minister of his country. Other Commission members, who were all hand-picked by Mwalimu Nyerere, included several former heads of state and other highly distinguished personalities from national and international spheres. It bears highlighting the fact that three among them played crucial roles in the effort to establish and launch the South Centre, in particular Gamani Corea of Sri Lanka, Luis Fernando Jaramillo of Colombia and Widjojo Nitisastro of Indonesia, all belonging to the early generation of “Third Worlders” and South--South cause enthusiasts..

¦ Elaborating and agreeing on a blueprint for national self-empowerment for South--South cooperation, to guide and be used as a reference by the individual developing countries in line with their own characteristics and capacities, and transforming this blueprint into a legal instrument binding for all developing countries.

¦ Exploring various modalities of how BRICS can contribute to the pursuit of common SSC goals, including by reviewing the experience with important institutional, financing, investment and other measures taken by some BRICS members in support of South--South cooperation.

¦ Focusing on the role and potential contribution of “digital South--South cooperation”, ICT, Internet and AI to the promotion and energizing of all forms of South--South cooperation, including closer contacts, communication, information sharing and interaction, mutual understanding between and among the peoples and countries of the South, transfer of technology, and education and culture.

¦ Nurturing, training and educating future cadres and leaders for South--South cooperation, directly exposing them to and familiarizing them with different problems and different regions of the South, and, when they are ready, deploying them in national, sub-regional, regional and multilateral, including UN, settings.

¦ Extending a hand of cooperation to the “like-minded” countries and civil society actors in the North who want to offer genuine support to South--South cooperation, as an integral part and a continuation of the developing countries' common struggle for sovereignty and development, formally launched far back in 1955 at the Bandung Conference.

¦ Calling for closer cooperation between and joint initiatives of G77 and NAM, as an important and pending political and institutional topic on the agenda of the Global South.

There is little new in the above suggestions, which draw on practical experiences and have been articulated over the years on many occasions and in different contexts. What these suggestions call for is within reach, is doable, and would represent a major “leap forward” for South--South cooperation. What is needed today is firm political will, long-term vision and determined initiative for a group of the South's countries and leaders to launch on the desired track and, most importantly, sustain that process with the necessary political commitment and financial and institutional support One more anecdote is in order at the end. At a South Commission meeting, wishing to dampen the enthusiasm of some Commission members during the discussion of whether to create a South secretariat, Manmohan Singh said: “If you were to present to developing countries on a silver platter an institution, with a building, ample financing, and a large staff, they would accept it gladly. If you ask them to establish and finance it themselves, there is very little hope that they would do it”. And, when I visited him relatively recently, after he ended his last term as Prime Minister of India, and brought up the potential importance of South--South cooperation, Singh asked me in his soft manner: “But, do you think that the developing countries' leaders care for and are interested in South-- South cooperation?!” Well, it seems that some care, as shown at the recent BRICS summits, for example in Xiamen, China, where the President of the host country, Xi Jinping, highlighted the role and importance of South--South cooperation. Were Mwalimu Nyerere alive, given his traditionally warm relations with PR China, he would surely by now have approached President Xi to ask him to play also the role of that mythical “rich uncle” he had been hoping to find and searching for but without success..

Given the tectonic shifts occurring in the North, including those that hark back to the sombre periods of human history that the Global South had fought against and succeeded in overcoming, the developing countries have a duty to their peoples, their history, and the international community as a whole to assume a collective-leadership role in the world arena at this critical juncture for humankind. While cooperating with the “friendly” North, they need to recognize and bear in mind the existence of the deeply entrenched, powerful and unchanged West that has its roots in the colonial and imperialist age, the aggressive and militarized West resolved in its pursuit of its global-empire designs and thus determined to keep the South under its control by various subtle and less subtle means, including by neutralizing the developing countries' national and collective efforts for greater autonomy and independence.

The 2019 Buenos Aires Conference is an opportunity for the South to stand up and raise its collective voice, as in Bandung, in Belgrade, or at UNCTAD I in Geneva. Both Patrice Lumumba and Julius Nyerere, were they still with us today, would be heartened if this were to happen. And, Mwalimu Nyerere would no doubt add a parable he had learned as a child from the elders of his Zanaki tribe and he cited in the closing remarks of his speech at the opening meeting of the South Commission on 2 October 1987:

“Wakasusu, nihe wagya?

Nagya kwita Wanzugu!

Oragya kutura?

Ndagya kusaya-sayamu, Ndinukira!”

“Rabbit, where are you going?

I am going to kill the Elephant!

Can you do it? Well, I'll try, and try again!”

He concluded: “The South can do what it needs to do. The South must never give up”.

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