Promoting and supporting South-South cooperation has been an expressed priority for UNDP for many decades, most recently with the 2004-2007 Multi Year Funding Framework explicitly stating that South-South Cooperation would be a driver of development effectiveness in all areas of work. In 1974 the General Assembly established a Special Unit for South-South Cooperation within UNDP to spearhead support to South-South cooperation within UNDP and the UN system. This evaluation looks at the effectiveness of the third cooperation framework managed the Special Unit and also assesses UNDP's efforts to promote South-South cooperation since 1996.
Based on case-studies in eight countries and UN Head Quarters in New York and Geneva, an electronic survey among UN Country Teams around the world and review of available evaluative evidence, the evaluation reaches four important conclusions. First, while the conceptual areas of the third cooperation framework for south-south cooperation were valid, the effectiveness of the framework was constrained by the mismatch among the mandate, resources and implementation strategy adopted by the Special Unit. Second, UNDP has not developed a robust and proactive corporate strategy to promote South-South cooperation. There is a lack of common understanding, incentives and systematic codification of experience. Third, at the country and regional levels, UNDP has been responsive to demand and a number of initiatives are undertaken. But the results of these initiatives are affected by the absence of a corporate strategy that commits capacity and resources and enables learning from experience. Fourth, the Special Unit and UNDP have not leveraged their particular and combined strengths and capacities to serve countries more effectively. The evaluation makes a number of recommendations to address these challenges.