India criticises West for trying to subsume South-South aid coop

United Nations: India has cautioned that attempts to "subsume" the South-South cooperation in the international aid architecture are not helpful and do no justice to the future potential of cooperation between developing nations. South South cooperation is about developing countries working together to find solutions to common development challenges, according to the United Nations Office for South South Cooperation. It describes the exchange of resources, technology and knowledge between developing countries.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said: "More and better South-South cooperation now is on account of the global South enjoying more rapid and sustained economic growth. Yet, South-South cooperation retains its distinct nature and values, as well as diversity of forms and flows. It defies easy categorisation".

The trajectory of global growth and the declining share of ODA during the last decade or so has seen attempts to subsume South-South cooperation in the international aid architecture, he said on Thursday at the second high-level United Nations Conference on South-South cooperation in Buenos Aires. "Such efforts are not helpful. They do no justice to either its historical heritage or its future potential. Let us not venture to strait jacket South-South cooperation into a format that it cannot fit into," Akbaruddin said.

He told the conference that over the last decade, India has extended Lines of Credit of about USD 25 billion to more than 60 countries of the South. All projects follow universally recognised norms and do not create unsustainable debt burdens while ensuring skill and technology transfer to help local communities maintain and sustain assets created, the envoy said. PTI