13 February 2019: Ahead of the second High-level UN Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA+40), which will take place in March, the co-facilitators of the informal intergovernmental negotiations on the outcome document circulated a second revised draft, while a regional technical workshop took place in Bangkok, Thailand. Informal consultations on the draft outcome resume on 19 February 2019.

Taking place approximately 40 years after the adoption of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA) for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, the BAPA+40 was mandated by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in order to strengthen south-south cooperation. BAPA+40 will take place from 20-22 March 2019, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

On 11 February 2019, co-facilitators Audra Plepyté, Permanent Representative of Lithuania, and Adonia Ayebare, Permanent Representative of Uganda, circulated the second revised draft of the BAPA+40 outcome document. The text integrates feedback provided by UN Member States over three rounds of informal consultations that took place from November 2018 to January 2019. The next informal consultations on the revised draft are scheduled for 19-20 February 2019.

The draft outcome document is 12 pages long, and contains an 18-paragraph preamble followed by sections on: Enhancement of South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation; UN support to South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation; Triangular cooperation; Science, technology and innovation; Multi-stakeholder partnerships; City-to-City cooperation; and Funding.

Also in preparation for BAPA+40, a regional technical workshop on ‘Perspectives and experiences in measuring South-South cooperation’ took place from 12-13 February 2019, in Bangkok, Thailand. The workshop was hosted by the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Seoul Policy Centre and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and aimed to: enable stakeholders in the region to exchange experiences on defining, quantifying, reporting, and measuring the impacts of south-south cooperation; and provide proposals on how statistics on south-south cooperation can be improved to better capture its contribution to the SDGs and national development efforts. [Draft outcome, 11 February] [Co-facilitators’ letter] [BAPA+40 website] [SDG Knowledge Hub previous story on BAPA+40] [Technical workshop]