NEPAD Agency CEO Dr Ibrahim Mayaki joined yesterday a Policy Dialogue on the impact of South-South Cooperation on Africa’s development at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) in Midrand.

South-South Cooperation represents a partnership of peers, without the hierarchies implicit in traditional technical assistance. It entails building stronger learning networks across Africa by sharing ideas and knowledge on development with each other and other developing countries around the world.

In his keynote address, Dr Mayaki underscored the value of South-South Partnerships for Africa and emerging countries versus traditional donor partnerships. He spoke on the benefits of enhanced relationships between Africa on one side and China, Brazil, Turkey and India on the other. 

He highlighted the key role that NEPAD continues to play in South-South cooperation and the benefits it presents to Africa and emerging partners. Dr Mayaki said that the NEPAD Agency, as the technical arm of the African Union, was in a privileged position to articulate and report back on Africa’s priorities and partnerships at high level global platforms such as the UN General Assembly.

The dialogue centred around two panel discussions which focused on a SWOT-Analysis of South-South vs traditional donor cooperation, intra-African development cooperation and development assistance from emerging economies. The second panel discussed the issue of Monitoring and Evaluation as well as how to better measure impact at national, regional and global level.