A payment leaves Nairobi from a push-button phone, reaches a village shop within seconds and has passed through no bank. The method, worked out in Kenya by people who had no account, was taken up in Dhaka and in Lima without London or Washington having to approve it. President Macky Sall counts this cooperation among countries of the South among the commitments of his candidacy for the office of UN Secretary-General, because it has moved ahead of rules that have not yet caught up with it.
Trade among countries of the South. More than half of developing countries' trade takes place among themselves, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, which is more than they trade with the North. In those exchanges they find solutions that models from elsewhere had failed to give them.
Solutions that fit. Like drought-resistant agriculture and community health, mobile payment was born in countries that lacked everything. These answers, designed under constraint, transfer more easily among countries that share the same constraints.
The Buenos Aires Plan of Action. Adopted in 1978, the plan laid the foundations of South-South cooperation, and a United Nations office is devoted to it. This cooperation adds to cooperation with the North and, above all, gives the countries of the South a common voice in the forums where the rules are decided.
A seat for the South-South office. The office has existed since the Buenos Aires plan; it still lacks a seat at the table where the rules of trade and debt are written. A Secretary-General who has chaired the African Union knows what a solution already tested by a neighbouring country is worth in a negotiation. He can place that office alongside the development agencies and put on the agenda of the major conferences the answers the South brings to itself. The rules of trade and debt would then be written with the countries that worked out those solutions, starting with the payment that left Nairobi.
The African Union experience. The chairmanship of the African Union in 2022 and twelve years as head of state underpin this commitment to South-South cooperation. The same experience explains why the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations: peace, security and development conceived together; a renewed multilateralism; stronger governance of the Organization.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The 1978 Buenos Aires Plan of Action and UNCTAD's reports on South-South trade are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net