Preparatory meeting: South Africas Road to BAPA +40 NeST-Africa meeting

Minutes from a preparatory NeST-Africa meeting held on April 4, 2018, focusing on South Africa's role and the broader African context leading up to the Second United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation (BAPA +40) in 2019. The meeting addressed challenges in South-South Cooperation (SSC), the evolving nature of international aid, the role of civil society in BRICS, and the development of a regional African SSC report.

• Argentina, as the host of the 2019 BAPA +40 conference, identified several challenges to South-South Cooperation (SSC), including the lack of an international definition for SSC, the need for institutional arrangements that span all policy departments, and the difficulty of engaging NGOs due to perceptions of political agendas.
• The international development system is shifting from an 'accommodation phase' (2004-2012) to a 'competition phase,' where emerging powers like China and India are influencing traditional donors. This is evidenced by the adoption of bottom-up negotiating approaches in the Paris Agreement and SDGs, and the creation of TOSSD to include 'Other Official Flows' in development cooperation.
• Research on trilateral cooperation (TrC) indicates a lack of global definitions, with only Germany, Spain, and Japan having specific definitions. Findings suggest that TrC projects are often smaller than bilateral ones, making them less attractive to some countries, and that South Africa has been criticized for relying on OECD evaluation frameworks when using OECD funding.
• Civil society organizations (CSOs) have sought to influence the New Development Bank (NDB) to increase transparency and sustainability. A specific gap was noted regarding gender, as the NDB lacks a separate Gender policy, despite the existence of the BRICS Feminist Watch alliance.
• The UNDP is coordinating the production of the first African SSC report, with 15 countries expressing interest. The report's framework includes national mechanisms, enabling environments, modalities for SSC, and regional/inter-regional institutions, with the goal of obtaining African Union (AU) endorsement in 2019.

APA

South African Institute of International Affairs (2018). Preparatory meeting: South Africas Road to BAPA +40 NeST-Africa meeting. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NeST-meeting-minutes_April2018.pdf

Chicago

South African Institute of International Affairs. Preparatory meeting: South Africas Road to BAPA +40 NeST-Africa meeting. 2018. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NeST-meeting-minutes_April2018.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=South African Institute of International Affairs |title=Preparatory meeting: South Africas Road to BAPA +40 NeST-Africa meeting |date=4 April 2018 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NeST-meeting-minutes_April2018.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{southafricaninstituteofinternationalaffairs2018preparatory, author = {{South African Institute of International Affairs}}, title = {{Preparatory meeting: South Africas Road to BAPA +40 NeST-Africa meeting}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2018}, month = apr, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/NeST-meeting-minutes_April2018.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }