GREATER COOPERATION AMONG DEVELOPING NATIONS VITAL TO FIGHTING POVERTY – BAN

22 November - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged greater economic cooperation and exchange of ideas among developing countries to boost efforts to alleviate poverty, saying that millions of people are still unable to meet their basic needs despite the rapid economic growth in some emerging economies.

“The more developing countries can share lessons about what works, from micro-finance to cash transfer programmes, the more we can advance,” Mr. Ban said in a message to the Global South-South Development Expo in Geneva, delivered on his behalf by Juan Somavia, the Director-General of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO).

“Countries across the global south have created jobs and freed millions of people from poverty through home-grown solutions or by drawing on the innovations of others. The South is a font of ideas and actions that are helping to tackle the major challenges of our day,” the Secretary-General told participants of the Expo.

An estimated 1.75 billion people in more than 100 countries still live in extreme poverty, Mr. Ban said, citing the Multidimensional Poverty Index, a new poverty indicator launched earlier this year by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative of Oxford University and the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

He said the Global South-South Development Expo is a valuable opportunity to share information, generate new initiatives, showcase technologies and explore what can be done to achieve a greener and more prosperous future.

“The United Nations stands with you in this effort, including through the presence of many of our agencies at this Expo,” he added.

Organized by the UN every year since 2008, the Expo provides a forum to enable developing countries and their development partners, including donor agencies, organizations of the UN system, and private sector and civil society organizations, to showcase their evidence-based South-South development solutions.

Solution forums include social protection and decent work, food security, climate change and environment, HIV/AIDS, global health, and education. This year's Expo will focus on enhancing the strategic capacity of developing countries in research and technology development, and will develop inter-regional partnerships in each of its core topic areas.