What makes South-South cooperation effective and enduring?
What makes South–South cooperation last? This piece explores how adaptation, institutional capacity, reciprocity and enabling conditions can turn knowledge exchange into enduring partnerships that continue generating value long after individual projects end.
South–South cooperation is often described as an exchange of knowledge, technology and expertise. But lasting cooperation depends on what happens after that exchange: whether institutions can adapt what they receive, build on it and eventually share capacity of their own.
Across the Global South, countries and institutions have developed deep expertise in tackling challenges such as soil degradation, climate pressures, crop productivity and food security. These make a good case for cooperation, but what makes it work in the real world, long after the project has ended?
I explored these questions during a panel marking the UN Day for South-South Cooperation with Dr. José Ednilson Miranda of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), Dr. Alka Singh of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI), and Dr. Dejene Abera of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). The panel held at the 2026 Dryland Congress hosted by ICRISAT.
Instead of concentrating only on success stories, I also asked about where cooperation had fallen short and what institutions need to make partnerships more reciprocal and sustainable.