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Foreign Affairs Ministers and high-level officials from the member countries of the Group of 77 and China, who have gathered in this capital (administrative) city for the Twelfth Session of the intergovernmental Follow-up and Coordination Committee on Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries (IFC-XII), adopted the Development Platform for the South as an essential and necessary tool for policy-making and action by the Member States of the Group of 77 in the context of the new realities and emerging challenges facing the developing countries.

The initiative for the elaboration of a Platform was made at the South Summit of the Group of 77, held in Doha, Qatar, from 12 to 16 June 2005. At that Summit, heads of State and Government requested the preparation of a "platform for the South to provide a framework of development options to support the participation and integration of developing countries into the global economy and the globalization process." A Panel of Eminent Personalities of the South was formed by the Chair of G-77 to elaborate the Platform, a process concluded in St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda on 29-30 April 2008 under the auspices of the Ministerial Chairman of G-77, the Hon. W. Baldwin Spencer, Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Antigua and Barbuda, who addressed the IFCC at the opening ceremony on 10 June 2008 and urged delegates to adopt the Platform.

Speaking to a packed auditorium of government representatives and local dignitaries; Prime Minister Spencer, a strong proponent of South-South cooperation, noted that the Platform "should be used as an instrument for international cooperation, including South-South cooperation; asserting pressure on donor countries to honor their ODA commitments rather than using South-South cooperation to supplement North-South flows, and helping to reshape the international economic architecture."

UN Ambassador Dr. John W. Ashe, who chaired the working sessions of the meeting, noted that “for all the shortcomings and setbacks, the record of South-South cooperation revealed many positive elements, and that there has been an important learning process concerning the management of economic relations among developing countries and about the potential, as the problems, inherent in such relations.”

In their interventions during the plenary debate, delegations highlighted the fact that efforts have been continuing in all three regions of the developing world to strengthen and extend mechanisms for economic integration and cooperation. All of these developments reflected the notion that South-South cooperation can attain a momentum of its own, notwithstanding links that it might have to the North-South process. It was pointed out that as efforts proceed to achieve more effective North-South relationships, so will there remain a continuing need for direct action to strengthen South-South cooperation at the inter-regional, regional and sub-regional level themselves.

It was argued that South-South cooperation constitutes a necessary dimension of any sub-regional, regional and global strategy of development and that strengthening of South-South linkages thorough the use of deliberate policies and instruments by developing countries cannot be viewed in isolation from the entire system of international economic relations. It was pointed out that the efforts of developing countries to enhance these linkages must continue to command the full support of the United Nations system given the basic thrust of its activities pertaining to the promotion of development and to international cooperation in this field.

The Ministers also agreed to operationalize the “South Fund for Development and Humanitarian Assistance,” which was established at the Second South Summit in Doha in 2005 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, with an initial pledged of US $20 million, to promote economic and social development in the countries of the South.

“After several false starts since its inception in 2005, I am particularly pleased that we have been able to agree on the modalities for the operationalization of the this important Fund, the first and only one of its kind that has been created by the South for the sole benefit of countries of the South,” said Prime Minister Spencer, who had made the launching of the Fund one of the milestones of his country’s chairmanship of the G77.

The South Fund will contribute to the sustainable development of developing countries by addressing poverty, hunger and humanitarian disasters through the implementation of projects and programs.

With these major accomplishments that had for so long eluded the Group; participants agreed that the IFCC-XII meeting in Yamoussoukro provided an ideal springboard for the UN Conference on South-South cooperation, to be held in 2009, through the identification of the facts and reality of South-South cooperation as currently exists and charting a course of action which would provide renewed impetus to these relationships.

In addition to the Prime Minister, Antigua and Barbuda’s delegation to the meeting consisted of UN Ambassador Dr. John W. Ashe, Ambassador Conrod Hunte, Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN and Ambassador Anthony Liverpoole of the Ministry of Foreign. (Ends)