AS we approach the golden jubilee of the Bandung Conference this month, it will be useful to visit the progress made in terms of South-South cooperation, since then. The event was held in 1955 at Bandung, Indonesia, when leaders of 29 developing countries met to promote collective self-reliance as a political imperative.
This was followed by the establishment of a Working Group on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC) by the UN General Assembly in 1972. In 1978, many more such leaders gathered at Buenos Aires to formulate a Plan of Action (BAPA), conceptual framework and programmatic goals, all endorsed by the UN General Assembly a few months later.
In 1999, the High-level Committee on the Review of Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC), in its eleventh session resolved that South-South cooperation should be viewed as a complement and not a substitute for North-South cooperation. This effectively means that the committee was of the view that a North-South-South cooperation was needed. Thus, came the recognition for the importance of trilateral development cooperation.
The Millennium Development Goals, the Monterrey Consensus among other international covenants have reinforced the need for enhanced and targeted delivery of overseas aid to developing countries. Most of the aid goes through the bilateral route with a large amount being channelled through inter-governmental organisations. Another route that is becoming popular is through ‘trilateral cooperation’ where aid is channelled through institutions in third countries for being applied to development projects in poor countries.
However, at the practical level, trilateral cooperation received a major boost in 1993 at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). It has since become known as TICAD process in which Japanese resources are used to promote exchanges between Asian and African countries.
Trilateral cooperation takes a broad-based approach that promotes partnerships with various actors, which include traditional donors, multilateral agencies, private sector, academic institutions and civil society organisations. Hence, trilateral cooperation does not necessarily mean involvement of three partners only. Nevertheless, it is a kind of partnership where three or three groups of actors are involved: donors, technical assistance providers and the recipients.
Development cooperation has traditionally been bilateral in nature even though the donors very often used services of private agencies or non-governmental organisations in their home countries. This has led to the emergence of several large NGOs mainly based in developed countries. CARE, Oxfam and Actionaid, to name a few. Some of them do attract support from other donor governments. Thus, a form of trilateral cooperation started involving developed country donor, developed country technical assistance providers and developing country recipients.
This form of cooperation got extended when some developed country donors started involving agencies and experts from other developing countries. This was done through both involvement of other developing country governments or that of private or non-governmental organisations. CUTS International, an India-based NGO is engaged in capacity building on trade, competition, consumer protection and investment issues in several developing countries under the trilateral cooperation framework.
A recent example of such a cooperation is the CUTS project involving capacity building on competition and regulatory issues in seven countries of Africa. The project is being supported by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Apart from CUTS, Third World Network is another developing country based NGO engaged in such activities.
Another form of trilateral cooperation takes place when developed country donors engage inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) for technical assistance. This need not be confused with the arrangement when developed country donors channel their funds through IGOs. An example in this regard could be the UNCTAD project on capacity building on trade policy issues in India supported by DFID.
Capacity building requirement is by no means an issue in developing countries only. There are requirements for sensitisation and capacity building in developed countries to give the developing country perspectives to the stakeholders there. CUTS is engaged in such activities in the developed world through trilateral cooperation. For example, Sweden has been assisting CUTS to conduct sensitisation seminars in the rich countries on the issue of mixing non-trade concerns, such as labour standards, with the trade agenda.
Bilateral assistance programmes have very often been criticised for their tied nature by which aid is tied to the donor country’s provision of goods and services. For example, it has been reported that in 1999,” 71.6 per cent of its bilateral aid commitments were tied to the purchase of goods and services from the US.” Tied purchases of goods and services usually led to recipient countries paying higher prices. On an average, a developing country expert costs one-third of experts at prevalent international rates. Trilateral cooperation can thus be a cost-effective way of promoting development cooperation.
The problem can be more complex in the provisioning of technical assistance and consulting services as concerns have often been raised that the type of technical assistance or services offered may not be appropriate to recipient country’s needs. Moreover, with a number of donor countries coming to a country with their own type of technical expertise, it can create problems for the recipient country as there can be much confusion and duplicity. Trilateral cooperation can be a way out of such problems.
Another issue related to tied aid is that when the donors tie up with local (donor’s home country) technical assistance providers, there is a possibility that monitoring by the donors may get relaxed as they are likely to develop alliances.
A third country provider of technical assistance is far less likely to develop such a relationship with a donor and hence monitoring is likely to be more rigorous. Hence, trilateral cooperation may bring more accountability in the implementation of development programmes.
Many successful development models and tools have been developed in the developing world. Bangladesh is a glaring example which has significant expertise and experience in areas such as micro credit, population and rural development. Such expertise and experience is being utilised in other developing countries through trilateral cooperation. For example, Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies is doing poverty related projects in India and Afghanistan among others with the financial support of western donors.
It is well recognised now that importing technologies or policies or legal practices from developed countries may not be appropriate for most developing countries. It may be better for them to draw these from countries that are developing but yet at a more advanced stage than they. In fact ignoring this has cost many developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa dearly as they implemented the Washington Consensus agenda.
Trilateral cooperation can be an effective way of bringing “appropriate intermediate technology” and “appropriate policy” to developing countries while taking the help of developed countries in meeting the financial resource need.
