South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Asia-Pacific : Towards a New Paradigm in Development Cooperation

SSC and TDC in Asia-Pacific have grown in importance over the past decades with the rising complementarities and emergence of growth poles in the region and due to attention paid by the governments to regional economic cooperation. Asian emerging countries have been cooperating with their partner countries within and outside the region primarily through sharing of development experiences, cooperation projects, capacity building, technical assistance, but increasingly also including subsidized lines of credit and grants, preferential market access on unilateral and reciprocal basis. Against that background, this paper reviews the relevance of SSC and TDC and the emerging trends and patterns in Asian context. It then discusses the policy challenges for exploiting the full potential of SSC and TDC and enhancing their effectiveness.