05/07/2024 Rome, Italy – Managing South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) projects involves a set of unique coordination and management skills. With FAO’s expanding project portfolio, there is an increasing need to strengthen the programmatic and operational efficiency and quality of SSTC project management, Anping Ye, Director of the SSTC Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said this week, at the Knowledge Sharing Workshop on SSTC: Improving the management of SSTC programmes and projects, hosted by FAO in Rome.

FAO has been spearheading cooperation among countries of the global South since 1979 and SSTC has been progressively integrated into FAO’s priority work, including FAO’s Strategic Framework 2022-31, he said, noting the key role of this cooperation modality.

The training workshop, organized by the South-South and Triangular Cooperation Division (PST) of FAO, saw the participation of over 70 participants from all the regions. The workshop was also a valuable gathering for sharing knowledge, experience, challenges and proposals on the formulation and implementation of FAO’s SSTC projects with diverse stakeholders, such as representative from FAO related divisions (offices, centers), regional offices, country offices, donor countries, recipient countries, and project experts.

This was the first FAO headquarters SSTC hands-on in-presence knowledge-sharing workshop since the COVID-19 outbreak, shedding light on SSTC best practices and SSTC project design.

FAO has implemented a portfolio of more than 140 projects covering around 110 countries with a budget of about USD 550 million. SSTC projects have supported knowledge brokering, sharing of technical know-how, peer-to-peer learning, and policy dialogue at local, regional, national and global levels.

Since the establishment of the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Trust Fund in 2009, it has supported more than 30 global, regional and national projects, covering most developing countries, and the direct beneficiaries currently exceed 100,000 people.

Through the above-mentioned South-South and triangular cooperation projects, more than 320 Chinese long-term experts and technicians have been sent to relevant developing countries to provide on-site agricultural technical assistance, more than 100 capacity building activities in the agricultural field have been organized, and more than thousands of people have directly benefited.

During the workshop, participants were able to share their knowledge and experiences on regional, national and global project design, funding and implementation modalities, monitoring, evaluation, and visibility of SSTC projects in line with the SSTC Guidelines for Action. They were also able to dive into discussions on how to create innovative partnerships and seek resource mobilization opportunities for SSTC projects and programmes.

The participants agreed that SSTC Monitoring and Evaluation should be strengthened. Setting up efficient systems and mechanisms for data collection, to communicate the impact of SSTC projects, was one of the main outcomes of discussions on day two.

During the Q&A and group meetings, participants discussed difficulties and challenges in project preparation and implementation, such as short time for project field planning and design, language barriers, insufficient human and financial resources provided by recipient countries, and uncertainties caused by certain unexpected events.

Also, potential solutions were highlighted, such as early and efficient project planning, sufficient resources allocated at country level to support the project formulation phase, having an SSTC taskforce working within the government, pre-validation with all project stakeholders, and the importance of clearly identifying the role of each counterpart, in order to efficiently coordinate project activities.

Participants also expressed their enthusiasm and eagerness to engage in the soon-to-be launched FAO SSTC Gateway platform and share their best practices and solutions via this network. The idea of having a space for collaboration and additional discussions subsequent to the event, via an online platform, was seen as an innovative and efficient approach, to keep the momentum going.

Final remarks touched upon the crucial role of collective experiences and lessons learned, coming out of the countries of the Global South and the important role of each actor involved in the SSTC exchange.

Click here to view the event's photo gallery.