FAO will support the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation initiative on Triangular Cooperation


The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation advocates for South-South and Triangular Cooperation to deliver long-lasting results that can help achieve the SDGs

01/12/2016 - 

1 December 2016, Nairobi – FAO will support the new initiative on Triangular Cooperation of the Global Partnerships for Effective Development Cooperation, initiated by Mexico and Canada. A working group will work at political and operational levels to ensure that triangular programming is grounded on the core principles of effectiveness.

The Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation recognized South-South and Triangular Cooperation “as an increasingly potent feature of international cooperation for development”, in its Second High-Level Meeting held these days in Nairobi.

The Global Partnership is therefore joining the main international cooperation frameworks to recognize the effectiveness of these forms of cooperation based on partnerships. “The Addis Ababa Agenda for development financing and, more specifically, SDG 17 advocates for partnerships as the essential tool for the success and effectiveness of cooperation. South-South and Triangular partnerships are a proven delivery mechanism for effective cooperation,” said Carlos Watson, the South-South Cooperation Team Leader at FAO, who participated in this meeting.

The Second High Level Meeting held a plenary session today on lessons learnt from South-South and Triangular Cooperation to discuss its inclusive and effective contribution to achieving the SDGs.

The outcome document issued after this high-level event acknowledges that South-South and Triangular Cooperation “present opportunities to tackle the challenges of the 2030 Agenda, particularly in least-developed countries and middle-income countries”. 

“Either between countries in the Global South or with the support of a triangular partner, South-South and Triangular Cooperation are two ways of cooperation for countries to achieve their own development priorities, as well as to foster their external economic, developmental and foreign policy agenda,” noted Watson on the positives spill-over that these forms of cooperation can generate.

Triangular Cooperation

In its outcome document, the Global Partnership also acknowledges that “Triangular Cooperation offers practical modalities that can promote inclusive partnerships for the SDGs” and that it can be “led by host countries and between different combinations of partners, having an enormous potential to promote mutual accountability, benefits and learning.”

For FAO, this three-way cooperation involves partnerships between two or more developing countries along with a third partner, typically a traditional resource partner and/or multilateral organization. Nonetheless, and irrespective of the specific definition applied, triangular initiatives have in common that not only financial resources, but know-how, skills, experiences and resources from both developed and developing countries are combined, even though the roles of different partners can vary to a great extent.

Triangular cooperation rests on the idea that Southern countries are in a better position to adapt their solutions to the needs of the beneficiary country, given that they have recently and successfully faced similar development challenges. “However, Southern partners still need technical and financial support, and expertise of triangular partners when engaging with other developing countries,” explained Watson.

According to FAO’s experience with Triangular projects so far, Watson recognized a “huge untapped potential for more triangular partners to facilitate SSC exchanges, particularly those from OECD countries, which, engage rather sporadically and in an ad-hoc manner in triangular cooperation projects”. Watson encouraged triangular partners to engage in these partnerships that can eventually “go beyond the realm of aid”.