18 June 2010: The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has released the “Economic Development in Africa Report 2010-South-South Cooperation: Africa and the New Forms of Development Partnership,” which examines the recent trends in the economic relationships of Africa with other developing countries, as well as new forms of partnership that have emerged in the past years.

The report argues that South-South cooperation has the potential to enhance Africa’s capacity to deal with the challenges of poverty and poor infrastructure, the development of productive capacity, and emerging threats associated with climate change, as well as the food, energy, financial and economic crises. In this regard, the report argues that there is a need for African countries to mainstream South–South cooperation into their development strategies to ensure that it further contributes to the achievement of national and regional development goals. [The Report]