South-South cooperation is an important tool to promote both: development and human rights while taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities.

 

That is why South-South cooperation should be construe as a strategy for the development and sustainability of societies and thus achieves the highest standards in human rights. 

 

Innovative tools can be developed to enhance and implement this concept, so that links can be established that allow the exchange between countries with cultural, social and political differences but with the common good of achieving sustainable development. Doing that, respecting sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination as key elements of SSC, will improve the enjoyment of human rights for all.

 

South-South cooperation: the importance for development

 

It’s for that reason that none can neglect the importance that South-South cooperation has played for developmentover the years. The growing role SSC has played in development processes, and the potential for consolidating and strengthening its results, are widely recognized.

 

When all States work together, this international cooperation can contribute towards addressing the growing disparity between North and South countries, and to combatting hunger, poverty, illness and other problems that affect humanity.

 

Moreover, South-South development cooperation modalities are well suited for strengthening regional cooperation on adaptation, the establishment of regional centers and networks, implementing and enhancing capacity-building in developing countries as well as policy coherence and coordination around the Climate agenda. 

 

South-South cooperation: the importance for human rights

 

Development cooperation, in particular, SSC has proven is efficacy in the promotion and protection of human rights.

 

SSC has highly demonstrated that taking into account national priorities for development and without impositions of any kind, countries can achieve a better level of development and their people can better enjoy human rights.

 

From the simple but very important right to life, to the rights to education and health, South-South cooperation continues to prove that development and human rights are interlinked, and that using one against the other always failsand the one who suffer more are the most vulnerable and in need.

 

South-South cooperation: Cuba’s experience

 

Over the years, Cuba has placed people at the center of their help to other nations, and has provided cooperation, abroad and from home, to Latin American, African and Asian countries, regardless of their sociopolitical systems and ideological precepts. From a thematic point of view, social interventions – health and education – are the focus of more than two thirds of its South-South cooperation actions, with the remaining third corresponding to areas such as risk management and disaster prevention, agriculture and sports.

 

This has been possible thanks to the country's active social policy, which has progressed in ways comparable to the developed world, and which allows it to share best practices with the other developing countries. At the same time, the altruistic, humanitarian and generous spirit of the Cuban people has been the other cornerstone that has made it possible to reach such levels of cooperation. As a result of its continuous activism, Cuba has been recognized by both national and international institutions, which identify it as one of the regional benchmarks for collaboration.

 

The substantial contributions Cuba has made through South-South cooperation at a regional and global level, sharing the little we have and not sharing what is left over, constitutes an important benchmark for implementing the 2030 Agenda and contributes to the creation of a community with a shared future for human beings.