The South-South Opportunity

Ibero-American countries moving ahead on SSC information management

Obtaining data on South-South cooperation is often a great challenge for policy-makers, practitioners and academia. The future of
South-South knowledge exchange depends to a good degree on capturing and
processing the data related to South-South activities, as scaling-up, learning
and not least accountability depends on the available information[1]. As some Latin
American pioneers show, good-quality information systems on SSC can be build if
strong institutional capacities are in place.

In a workshop held in Cartagena (Colombia) on 21-23 July 2010, representatives from 14 from Ibero-American countries discussed the
challenges of sound information management in South-South cooperation and
agreed on mutual exchanges to foster their capacities and to explore potential
compatibilities of data. The event gathered a total of 36 very committed
professionals working on information management in their respective ministries
or agencies, desiring to exchange experiences. Reflecting the generational change
in many countries of the region, many attendees were young experts, highly
committed to boost regional dynamics which make sense to their national
context. The workshop was part of the Ibero-American Program for Strengthening
South-South cooperation (www.cooperacionsursur.org), launched by
the Ibero-American Summit in San Salvador in 2008. The Program is a highly
innovative mechanism which facilitates mutual learning and capacity development
from within and involves especially the practitioners directly involved in the
specific areas of work.

A very lively debate evolved around an ongoing mapping exercise and the different existing models of information systems. A
strong trend goes to mixed systems, in which country-tailored SSC data is
captured and recorded in parallel to the traditional aid flows, such as
Mexico’s information system and Colombia’s cooperation maps, a model which is
already being transferred to several other countries in the region (http://www.impactalliance.org/ev_en.php?ID=48706_201&ID2=DO_COMMUNITY). Among the key
messages, the participants stressed the urgency to build strong capacities at
the recipient end. Importantly, the compatibility of data which the LAC
countries send annually to the SEGIB Report on Ibero-American Cooperation was
highlighted as a key challenge to be addressed, which ultimately could lead to
country-led, but regionally agreed indicator and data set. For the next months,
the participants agreed on a total of fourteen knowledge exchanges focusing on
information systems and transparency, which will entails field visits,
internships and videoconferences.

Finally, participants expressed their desire to engage in analytical work and good practices, and discussed about possible
synergies among the Ibero-American Program, the OAS-hosted regional platform
CooperaNet (www.cooperanet.org)
and the Task Team on South-South cooperation (http://www.southsouth.info).

More info on the Ibero-American Program: http://www.cooperacionsursur.org/

See pictures here: http://www.southsouth.info/photo/albums/cartagena-workshop-on-ssc

[1] Highlighted in the Bogotá Statement, High Level Event, Bogotá March 2010. http://www.impactalliance.org/ev_en.php?ID=48980_201&ID2=DO_COMMUNITYmso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; color:#5E5E5E;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:ES-CO">

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Comment by Enrique Maruri on August 4, 2010 at 10:20pm: The Ibero-American Program on SSC is truly an asset for the LAC region and a key instrument for promoting a more effective development cooperation.

The exchanges among practitioners defined during the Workshops in Cartagena, Colombia, besides promoting peer learning on SSC information systems, will be an excellent opportunities to consolidate a network of people that could continue interacting and collaborating in the future.

The collective work of these officials should also serve as an opportunity to agree on a minimum set of data and information, and its corresponding procedures to be collected, to improve national information systems on SSC. This should also facilitate generating and comparing the information to be submitted annually to SEGIB, by country members, as input for the production of the Ibero-American Cooperation Report.

Information systems is not the only work stream of this regional initiative. Training and the identification of “success stories” are also areas where participants are expected to make progress during 2010. A very promising work!!!

Congratulations and good luck with the upcoming activities. This is really an outstanding effort that deserves full attention.

Comment by Nils-Sjard Schulz on July 30, 2010 at 6:23pm: I had the privilege to participate in this energetic event and to exchange ideas with the highly motivated practitioners who gathered in Cartagena de Indias. This kind of initiatives - bringing together the actual people working on bottlenecks of SSC - is a very powerful way of building a sound regional agenda. The Iberoamerican Program succeeds in combining high-level commitment with a strong verve for professionalization and on-the-ground problem-solving. It is great to see how knowledge exchange is just a natural expression of the Program in order to overcome individual and collective challenges in managing information and data, which are so needed in order to boost the SSC agenda on a sustainable basis. Congratulations to Paty and her team at the Iberioamerican Program for an outstanding work which will bear manifold fruits over the next months and years.