The High-level Forum of Directors General for Development Cooperation (DG Forum) is a platform for national cooperation agencies and institutions implementing South-South and triangular cooperation. Other stakeholders and practitioners of South-South and triangular cooperation were also invited to the Forum.
The 12th edition of the annual DG Forum, held from 17 to 19 March 2021 online, brought together the heads of development cooperation agencies and institutions as well as other partners. It was the first DG Forum to take place in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The 12th edition of the DG Forum provided specific recommendations on how to move forward South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation agenda for sustainable development through actionable and results-oriented solutions particularly in the context of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how to strengthen the institutionalization of South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation for effective implementation of the BAPA+40 outcome document.
With that purpose, the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), co-organized the DG Forum on the overall theme of “trends, opportunities and challenges on the path to sustainable development: strengthening South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation in the COVID-19 context”. Over one hundred sixty participants attended the DG Forum.
The Forum provided an opportunity for the development cooperation practitioners to take stock of how South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation have performed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on the outcomes of the DG Forum 2019, during which extensive discussions were held on the importance of stronger institutional arrangements – or national ecosystems for South-South and triangular cooperation, it also provided an opportunity to assess progress towards implementing the BAPA+40 outcome document recommendations and exchange views on ways and approaches to strengthen South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation taking into consideration the new trends and opportunities as well as evolving challenges that development cooperation may face in the medium to long term.
Please find here a summary of the Session 1 DG forum.