Reverse Linkage

128 REVERSE LINKAGE T he Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) is an international, intergovernmental organi- sation that embraces the nineteen Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (from Mexico to Chile, including Cuba and the Dominican Republic) and the three on the Iberian Peninsula (Andorra, Spain and Portugal). Since 2007, the SEGIB has been preparing the annual Report on South- South Cooperation (SSC) in Ibero-America, in accordance with the mandate of the Summit of Heads of State and Government held in the same year in Santiago de Chile. This report systematises and analyses the South-South and Triangular Cooperation projects and actions that the Ibero- American countries implement in conjunction with each other and whose information is provided by the govern- ments of the region. In addition, and for two years now, the Ibero-American countries have also been reporting data relating to the SSC they took part in together with coun- tries from other developing regions. In this respect, and by way of example, the most recent 2017 report records Ibero- American country SSC projects and actions with 42 of the 57 member countries of the Islamic Development Bank. The report, whose first copy dates back to the year 2007, has already been published in ten editions. This insight into more than a decade of joint work by the SEGIB and the Ibero-American countries has, on the one hand, enabled the region to showcase and highlight the work done and, on the other, to reflect on the importance of this collabo- rative systematisation exercise and the achievements it has brought about. Thus, the report’s value lies not only in its ability to annually systematise over 1,000 SSC projects and actions in the region, turning it into a benchmark, but also in the way the working dynamics have developed among the different stakeholders participating in their production. Many challenges and difficulties have to be faced when it comes to systematising the SSC of a developing region. After more than a decade’s work across Ibero-America, many lessons have been learnt and many solutions have been found; hence, much of this groundwork will undoubtedly be of strategic use for other regional experiences or for any eventual intergovernmental process leading to the drafting of a global SSC report. In this respect, preparing the report becomes an exercise in SSC in itself, where countries in the region work, collaborate and agree on the methodologies and concepts of South-South and Triangular Cooperation. One of the main challenges that had to be faced and which, to a large extent, still persists, is that of reaching the political and technical agreements needed to define the concepts and methodologies under which SSC is recorded. In this way, the countries, driven by their political will to progress in the matter, have focused on working on the areas of mutual understanding and on the quest for common denominators, overcoming differences and national peculiarities in their way of conceiving and develop- ing their SSC. Over the years, this recognition of shared areas laid the groundwork for building a common framework for systematising SSC in the report. Building this framework has, moreover, been aided and articulated through gradual, coor- dinated work at two levels – the technical and the political. The political level is represented through the member countries’ national, high-level, international cooperation authorities, guaranteeing, in this way, representation of all the countries and incorporating their different perspectives under this common framework. Given the relative short- age of international spaces for discussing SSC effectively, the framework generated by the annual report preparation process in the SEGIB’s political action arena has resulted in the building of an exceptional area for deliberating concepts and articulating shared positions of a periodic, enduring nature. Furthermore, the technical level is represented by these cooperation management institutions’ civil serv- ants, who work daily on executing and systematising the SSC carried out by their countries, enabling the conceived political framework to be adapted to what is really feasible in accordance with the countries’ capabilities. It is extremely important to point out that, as methodologi- cal advances lead to an improvement in recording systems, Reporting SSC – lessons from Ibero-America Martín Rivero Illa, Social Cohesion and South-South Cooperation Area Coordinator for the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB); Cristina Xalma, Lead Researcher for the Report on South-South Cooperation in Ibero-America (SEGIB), Silvia López, Researcher for the Report on South-South Cooperation in Ibero-America (SEGIB)