BAPA+40 Side Event: South-South Cooperation for Economic Integration: UNCTAD’s Platform

South-South economic integration can provide unique opportunities to developing countries to structurally transform and deliver on their sustainable development goals, but these opportunities come with associated challenges.

Developing countries can greatly benefit by sharing their policies and experiences in this area. UNCTAD under its project on SDG and BRI is launching a Platform to share policies and experiences among BRI partner countries in the key areas of regional value chains, finance, digital economy, debt sustainability and trade.

This Platform will also share the policies and strategies adopted by China in its structural transformation and emergence as a digital leader.

In this event the panelists will brainstorm about the core elements of the Platform and the priorities in terms of experience sharing along with the actions of the international community for fostering an enabling environment to encourage South-South knowledge and experience sharing.

We’ll have a panel discussion with a group of eminent panelists, including both experienced policy makers and renowned scholars.

Questions to be addressed:

• How does the international community foster an enabling environment to encourage knowledge and experiences sharing among developing countries?

• What kind of opportunities does BRI provide to partner countries in terms of sharing of knowledge and policy experiences?

• What role can UN system and other international organizations play in facilitating such peer-learning process and strengthening its effectiveness?

• What major components should be included in the UNCTAD's Platform? And what should be the priorities in terms of experience sharing?

• Concerning the virtual platform, what should be its the structure and function?

Pre-Working Lunch: 12:30-13:00

Moderator and Introductory Remarks (13:00-13:15)

• Dr. Rashmi Banga, Officer-in-Charge and Senior Economic Affairs Officer, ECIDC-GDS, UNCTAD

Panel Discussion (13:15-14:35)

• H.E. Albert M. Muchanga, Commissioner for Trade and Industry, African Union Commission
• H.E. Mdm. Amb. Ina Hagniningtyas Krisnamurthi, Special Advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on Economic Diplomacy, Indonesia
• Mr. Zhang Yi, Deputy Director-General, China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges, Ministry of Commerce, China
• Ms. Andleeb Abbas, Parliamentary Secretary on Foreign Affairs, Pakistan
• H.E. Mojalefa Refiloe Litjobo, Ambassador, Permanent Mission at Geneva, Lesotho
• Mr. Debapriya Bhattacharya, Chair, Southern Voice international network of think tanks
• Mr. Juteau D. Tousse, First Counselor, Permanent Mission at Geneva, Cameroon

Open Discussions (14:35-14:55)

Closing Remarks:

• Mr. Wang Dawei, Economic Affairs Officer, ECIDC-GDS, UNCTAD