CAIRO: A high-level symposium on Sunday aimed at discussing issues in South-South development cooperation and aid effectiveness. The two-day Cairo symposium, titled "Trends in Development Cooperation: South-South and Triangular Cooperation and Aid Effectiveness, is part of the preparatory process for the first biennial Development Cooperation Forum (DCF). The forum will be held under the United Nation's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) this July. "This is the year of development, declared Sha Zukang, under-secretary general of the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), in his opening speech to the press. "ECOSOC has a huge role to play, and we have a very experienced president. Ambassador Leo Merores, the newly elected president of ECOSOC, was equally optimistic, saying that both the Cairo Symposium and the Vienna Symposium, held last year as the first of two preparatory meetings, will "facilitate the way to a successful DCF and a more consistent cooperation between developing countries. "The purpose of this symposium was not about negotiation, clarified Merores, "but to hear the views of both the developed and developing countries in order to arrive at a new architecture for cooperation. Conditionality and aid effectiveness were the issues of focus in the conference, with the speakers, who included Assistant Minister for International Economic Relations and International Cooperation, Ambassador Ramzy Ezeldine Ramzy, speaking passionately about their views. Zukang labeled conditionality as "a dirty word, and said conditions for aid and cooperation should either be eliminated or reduced. "Conditions such as good governance, democracy, human rights, transparency, elimination of corruption - they all look good, said Zukang, "but the question is: Are countries from the developing world in a position to meet them? Zukang answered negatively, explaining, "This is why they are called developing. Merores echoed Zukang's statement, saying that conditionality is hindering development because countries do not have full ownership of the development effort. He suggested cooperation should be based on output and results, rather than meeting conditions too ambitious for developing countries to adhere to. "I want to stress on the point that the South-South dimension is going to be critical about this issue in the future, asserted Ramzy. The Arab world's hindrance in benefiting from South-South cooperation was also discussed. Merores expressed concern with the poor public relations efforts. "This is an area that needs to be a bit more publicized, he said. Ramzy was confident, affirming that although there's a lot more potential in the Arab world for benefiting from the South-South cooperation, a lot has been done. He stated that many banks are already engaged in financing the region, while further inspiring hope for a bright future in the form of the first Arab Economic Summit to be held in Kuwait in November. While stressing that South-South cooperation is gaining importance, Zukang stated, "North-South relations still remain as the pillar for international relations and economic development [for developing countries]. Therefore we must steal the North-South's attention, and have the South-South cooperation act as a supplement.
