FAO and Indonesia join forces to further mainstream joint South-South and Triangular Cooperation actions

15/02/2024 Rome/Jakarta – The South-South and Triangular Cooperation Division (PST) in FAO, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia and the FAO representation for Indonesia met today to discuss new potential partnership opportunities through South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC).

South-South and Triangular Cooperation, is an active mechanism that promotes global visibility, demonstrates commitment and responsibility towards the international community.

FAO, being a successful promotor and facilitator of SSTC in the field of agriculture and food security, expressed its willingness to find ways to further strengthen SSTC partnerships between FAO and Indonesia to facilitate sharing of knowledge, innovation, and expertise with partner countries.

On behalf of the PST Director, the PST Senior Programme Officer, Mr Nafis Khan, thanked the Indonesian government and confirmed PST’s collaboration: “We, in PST, stand ready to support Indonesia in facilitating this collaboration by identifying areas of common interest and provide interventional assistance to the countries through successful SSTC modality. We believe that Indonesia has gathered valuable technical know-how and development experience in the agriculture sector over the years, which has benefited many countries in the Global South”.

A series of presentations followed on the current SSTC project portfolio and overall support provided by PST on SSTC to Member Countries.

Examples of best practices from emerging countries in the Global South were presented by PST, with the overall aim of enhancing the understanding of all counterparts and further strengthening the current collaboration with the Government of Indonesia.

The meeting was also key to follow-up on the FAO-Indonesia joint South-South and Triangular Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed in September 2021.

The MoU provides a framework for cooperation with the overall goal of fostering institutional capacity development, technology, and experience transfer among FAO Member Nations under FAO’s partnership frameworks, in particular the SSTC, in the field of agriculture and food security.

“Indonesia has excellent expertise in a number of areas such as tropical agriculture, marine and inland fisheries, and livestock and have a great potential to support other countries in Asia-Pacific and Africa. I think today’s meeting, which was attended by a large number of government officials from Indonesia and several countries in Asia and Africa, is a great start of our constructive dialog to further progress the pathway on South-South and Triangular Cooperation.” said Mr. Rajendra Arya, FAO Representative for Indonesia and Timor-Leste.

During the meeting, Indonesia also reiterated its willingness to share its expertise with its Asia-Pacific neighbors and Africa via the South-South and Triangular Cooperation mechanism and confirmed its commitment to diverse development Fora to further mainstream SSTC, towards the attainment of the SDGs.

Areas of collaboration were also discussed between FAO and Indonesia on strategic SSTC initiatives, such as institutional capacity development, innovative technologies, regional training centers.

In summary the participants endorsed that collaboration is the foundation of South-South and Triangular Cooperation, and how by working closely with partners, such as Indonesia, it is possible to address a broader range of development challenges and amplify the SSTC impact. The Indonesia counterpart government reaffirmed their commitment to further discuss and identify joint activities with FAO and commence implementation.