What Is a Southern Development Solution?


Many innovative solutions are being developed in the South to effectively contribute to sustainable development. These Southern development solutions can be methods, practices, technologies or initiatives that mitigate the hardships of poverty and underdevelopment and result in progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

These solutions are contributing to inclusive growth in their originating countries and have great potential to assist other developing countries. They can be replicated, scaled up or adapted across developing countries from any public or private institution, group or project that has made a significant contribution to human development in the global South.

Importance of Documenting and Disseminating Southern Development Solutions

Only documented cases provide the opportunity for learning from development experiences and for adequate engagement in cooperative arrangements for knowledge transfer and/or replication. Documented practices build a bridge between empirical solutions, research and policy.

Many innovative approaches relevant to social and economic development have already been documented and put in practice in developing countries but their application has encountered a number of challenges, for example:

    1. Limited documentation suitable for knowledge transfer and identification of relevant actors (potential partners);

    2. Limited exposure to objective criticism and peer review;

    3. Limited endorsement from the range of stakeholders in the experience;

    4. Limited perspective (local vs. global); and

    5. Limited national and international visibility.

    The GSSD Academy intends to address many of these limitations by establishing a cooperative endorsement process to raise the profile of case studies and support the replication process.

    Criteria for the Selection of Solutions

    The GSSD Academy is most interested in solutions that demonstrate some or all of  the following attributes of effective development cooperation:

    1. Clear long-term development objective;

    2. Real ownership by beneficiaries;

    3. Strong country leadership;

    4. Inclusive partnership;

    5. Innovation while capitalizing on local capacities and assets;

    6. Equitable distribution of benefits;

    7. Sustainability; and

    8. Replicability.

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