About our Work

In order to ensure that global governance structures reflect Southern interests and concerns, the South itself needs to be more united and to engage in collective multilateral action. It needs to engage the North in constant dialogue and assert its collective strength. Individually, most developing countries by themselves are weak and marginalized at the international level. Collectively, however, developing countries can be a strong voice and influence in the shaping of global policies that affect people’s lives everywhere.

The South needs to ensure that its collective institutions are strong and capable of providing it with the analytical research and technical support capacity that it needs to enter into effective negotiations and dialogue with the North. The South has to provide its institutions with the resources that they need in order to be of maximum use to the South’s collective actions. Notable Southern institutions include the G-77 and China, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Bandung, and the G-24 (as well as formal or informal Southern groups or coalitions in other international institutions such as the WTO).

The proliferation of bilateral and regional trade, investment and economic arrangements is one of the most important developments in the recent times.  Some of the issues arising from the proliferation of regional arrangements include: the institutional arrangements covering various types of bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements and their implications for the development of developing countries; the role that regional arrangements can play, either improving or aggravating the power imbalance in global economic relations; and, the interrelationship amongst regional arrangements and with the multilateral trade and economic systems.

The trade and economic policy implications of regional and bilateral trade and other economic arrangements will be addressed by work done or to be undertaken in the context of the Centre’s Trade for Development Programme (TDP). The Global Governance for Development Programme will focus on the governance aspects of the regional arrangements. The relevant regional arrangements for this Programme are South-South and North-South.

Ever since its creation in 1995, the South Centre has been fully supportive of the work of the Southern institutions; and these institutions recognize the value of the work of the South Centre in supporting the ideas promoted by the G-77 and China, the NAM, and the G-24, among others.

In order to strengthen the role of Southern institutions in global governance, the Programme’s work involves:

1. Defining and undertaking research in specific areas of interest to the G-77 and China, the NAM, and the G-24, consistent with the research and policy analyses priorities of the Programme
2. Providing case-by-case technical research and analytical support to these institutions as may be required and consistent with the Centre’s internal guidelines.

1. Examining and understanding role and impact of such South-South arrangements (such as those in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Africa) on global economic governance, and their ability to strengthen the South’s hand in global relations
2. Examining possible alternative arrangements for South-South political and economic relations that would be designed to increase South-South solidarity and North-South dialogue in the pursuit of broad-based, equitable, and environmentally sustainable development paths for the South
3. Understanding the creation, negotiation dynamics, and legal regimes of the North-South arrangements
4. Examining the impact of North-South arrangements on global economic governance, and their ability to diminish or strengthen the South’s hand in global relations
5. Examining and mapping possible alternative arrangements for North-South political and economic relations that would be designed to increase South-South solidarity and North-South dialogue in the pursuit of broad-based, equitable, and environmentally sustainable development paths for the South.

Publications