Global South- A force to reckon with

As India focuses on playing a larger role globally, the global south has become a force to reckon with.  The two-day South-South Cooperation conference organised by New Delhi based think tank RIS, in partnership with the External Affairs Ministry, was inaugurated on March 10. The global conference was launched amidst much fanfare with hundreds of delegates from all over the world participating in the event during next two days. At the inaugural session, Dr Sachin Chaturvedi, the  Director General of RIS said: “Capacity building and experience sharing should be  the cornerstone of South-South Cooperation.” The opening session of the day witnessed a host of participants speaking about the importance of SSC, and the future of the global south. There was a call for the need of a new plurilateral framework in SSC. Focusing on the importance of the global south, one of the panelists said that  the global south is a force to reckon with  due to the demographic dividends it possesses. With growing interest in SSC, Mr Chaturvedi said that more than 4000 references for South-South Cooperation studies covering trade, tech transfer, capacity building. The Network of Southern Think Tanks was a major accomplishment, and it is a platform for creating new knowledge and evaluation methodologies for SSC. The presence of young researchers from various think tanks in the global south at the conference showed the potential the network can have. Role of the global south The conference was hosted  at an opportune time as 2015 witnessed an accomplishment of milestones such as implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the global climate deal at COP21 in Paris. The panelists were of the view that the role of the global south cannot be ignored, and they also discussed the differences between these countries and the global north. The global south doesn’t practice the donor-recipient model and has a more reasonable approach in providing developmental assistance to other developing countries. Nearly 80 percent of the trade from the global south is from Asia. Africa and Latin America have a negligible share in the global trade. The SSC encourages greater FDI inflow as they are less risk averse than the global north.