For more than half a century, South–South Cooperation (SSC) has been a story of solidarity, shared struggles, mutual learning, and collective self-reliance among developing nations. Yet for most of its history, it has remained a story told in spirit and anecdotes, not in statistics. While North–South development assistance has long been tracked, measured, and evaluated in dollars and datasets, SSC has largely remained invisible in global reporting systems. It has been rich in intent but poor in data — its achievements dispersed across thousands of projects, its scale and impact rarely quantified.
That invisibility is changing. With a renewed focus on data-driven cooperation, the Global South is beginning to measure its own development contributions. This effort gained global attention at the 16th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 16), held in Geneva on 20-23 October 2025.
From Spirit to Structure
SSC has evolved from its early days of ideological solidarity into a multidimensional development partnership. Across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, countries exchange expertise, technology, concessional finance, and humanitarian assistance through a web of bilateral, regional, and multilateral arrangements. Yet, the absence of a unified method to quantify these flows has limited the visibility and policy weight of the South’s contributions.
Recognising this gap, India played a pivotal role in chairing the UN subgroup that shaped the architecture of a Framework for Measuring South–South Cooperation introducing a comprehensive, inclusive, and voluntary methodology. It is anchored in a resolution endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission in 2022, following years of consultation among developing countries and international observers.
The Framework represents more than a statistical breakthrough; it is a declaration of self-confidence that the developing world can define, measure, and own its role in shaping global development. It distinguishes South–South Cooperation activities through three complementary modalities. Group A covers direct financial contributions such as concessional loans, grants, and debt relief. Group B includes non-financial contributions that can be monetised economically, such as scholarships, training programmes, and technical assistance. Group C, meanwhile, captures non-financial inputs and outputs that are quantified through non-monetary metrics — for instance, hours of expert deployment, the number of beneficiaries, or the scale of knowledge-exchange activities. This layered approach captures both the tangible financial flows and the equally vital but less quantifiable exchanges of expertise, capacity, and solidarity that define SSC.
A Framework for the Future
The Framework is not a rigid accounting tool but a flexible template adaptable to national contexts. It provides detailed data-collection tables, quality-assurance guidelines, and reporting templates designed to suit countries with varying institutional capacities. Its emphasis on government-led, development-oriented, and humanitarian activities ensures both relevance and comparability.
The early results are promising. Over 60 developing countries have already expressed strong interest in exploring the framework, with some regional projects now under way in partnership with UNCTAD. For the first time, South–South cooperation — encompassing financial flows, technical cooperation, capacity building, and knowledge sharing is being quantified in a harmonised and transparent manner.
Importantly, the Framework is aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17.3.1, which tracks resources mobilised for development. This alignment allows countries to report their SSC contributions as part of their SDG progress, thereby positioning the South as both a beneficiary and a provider of global development finance. The initiative also complements ongoing efforts such as the Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), reducing data fragmentation and enhancing global comparability. SSC data could become a routine part of national development reporting by 2026 — a quiet but transformative revolution in international cooperation.
India’s Leadership and Experience
India’s leadership in this initiative is grounded in its longstanding record of South–South engagement. Through the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme and many other similar schemes, India has, over the decades, trained more than 340,000 professionals from fellow developing countries in diverse fields: from agriculture, health, livelihood and public administration to digital governance and renewable energy.
Complementing this is the India–UN Capacity-Building Initiative, launched at the UN General Assembly in 2023, which harnesses digital tools and collaborative learning to strengthen public institutions across the Global South. Together, these initiatives reflect a philosophy of partnership rather than prescription, sharing what works through mutual respect and co-creation.
On the financial side, India has extended over 300 concessional lines of credit to 68 countries, amounting to more than US$32 billion in development finance. The new measurement framework will help capture the full scale and impact of such cooperation, making India’s contributions transparent, trackable, and evidence-based.
Challenges on the Road Ahead
Transitioning from pilot projects to national systems will not be without difficulties. The foremost challenge is uneven data capacity across developing countries. Many lack the institutional infrastructure, trained personnel, or interoperable systems necessary for large-scale data collection.
To address this, sustained investment in capacity-building is vital. Training statisticians, strengthening national statistical offices, and developing standardised data protocols are preconditions for success. Technology, too, can be transformative: cloud-based platforms can lower costs and facilitate harmonised data processing; AI-assisted validation tools can enhance accuracy; and blockchain-enabled systems can ensure data integrity and traceability. With its extensive capacity-building ecosystem and pioneering digital public infrastructure, India is uniquely positioned to deepen its leadership in empowering fellow nations of the Global South. By leveraging these strengths, India can help shape a new era of collaborative development—one where technology, knowledge, and trust converge to build resilient institutions and shared prosperity across the developing world.
Equally important is designing data-collection tools that are user-friendly. For many countries, especially those with lesser capacity, complex statistical software or technical training requirements can be barriers. Simplified or semi-automated data terminals requiring minimal training could make participation more inclusive and sustainable.
Finally, the framework’s credibility will depend on multi-stakeholder participation. Governments must work closely with academia, civil society, and the private sector to ensure that cooperation is measured not merely by quantity but by the quality and impact of change it brings to people’s lives. SSC is not just about inputs — money, experts, or projects, but about outcomes: enhanced resilience, productivity, and human development.
The Next Frontier: Measuring South–South Trade
Integrating SSC trade into the framework could also inform debates on reforming the WTO and global value-chain resilience. A critical frontier still remains — the systematic measurement of South–South trade flows. While the current framework focuses on development cooperation, the South’s trade in goods and services constitutes a powerful, yet under-analysed, driver of mutual growth.
Integrating trade data on tariffs, value-chains, and investment flows within the broader SSC measurement architecture could unlock new insights. It would enable countries to identify complementarities, design regional supply chains, and target sectors with the highest potential for shared value creation. A transparent, data-driven understanding of South–South trade could help channel investments where they matter most and foster a more resilient and self-sustaining global South economy. Such an expansion could enrich debates on reforming multilateral trading systems and enhancing South–South value-chain resilience.
A Quiet Revolution in Global Development
In many ways, the Framework for Measuring South–South Cooperation represents a quiet revolution: a shift from goodwill to governance, from solidarity to strategy. It places developing countries at the centre of defining what development cooperation means, how it is delivered, and how it is counted.
By quantifying their collective efforts, countries of the South are not only asserting ownership but also enhancing credibility and mutual accountability. The framework transforms SSC from a moral narrative into a measurable, policy-relevant force. It also provides the data infrastructure needed to showcase the South’s real contribution to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The larger message is one of confidence and agency: the Global South is not a passive recipient of aid but an active architect of shared prosperity. As the framework matures and data flows begin to populate global reporting systems, the world will gain a clearer, fairer picture of development cooperation in all its dimensions — financial, technical, and human.
