Reverse Linkage

53 DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION T he Tunisian Agency for Technical Cooperation (ATCT) is a non-profit organization, created in 1972 to implement the Tunisian Government policy to facilitate technical cooperation in response to developing countries’ needs in different fields and through various modalities such as South-South and Triangular Cooperation. ATCT’s long-standing partnership with the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) dates back to 1997 when an agreement was signed between the Bank and the Tunisian Government. ATCT has always shown its commitment to IsDB and, in 2015, joined the initiative to implement South- South Cooperation (SSC) projects through the innovation of Reverse linkage (RL). In this way, ATCT is developing its cooperation with the Bank and sister agencies to help IsDB member countries achieve their development goals through providing expertise in priority areas such as project management, financial and administrative control, voca- tional training and employment, health, education, private sector development, poverty alleviation, agriculture and fisheries, environment and waste water management, stand- ardisation, metrology, and renewable energy. In 2016, with the support of IsDB, ATCT joined the Joint Partnership Initiative on South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Agricultural Development and Enhanced Food Security, launched initially by UNOSSC and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which aims to identify successful solutions that could be replicated and adopted in the countries of the Arab region, Europe and the CIS region. A three-year RL project was subsequently launched inMay 2017 between ATCT and IsDB to develop the capacity of the Ministry of Education in Chad in the field of Arab language teaching, with technical support from the International Center for Training of Trainers and Educational Innovation (CIFFIP). Another cooperation project, for the implementation of a mobile payment platform in Mauritania has been developed between IsDB, the Mauritanian Post and the Tunisian Post, to be carried out during the course of 2018. Successful partnerships between ATCT and IsDB Mr Elborni Salhi, Director General, Tunisian Agency for Technical Cooperation (ATCT) NAB and the alliance for fighting avoidable blindness Many African countries are lacking in ophthalmolo- gists, infrastructure, and equipment. NAB – an NGO founded by a group of volunteer Tunisian ophthalmolo- gists – has organized large campaigns to promote eye surgery in many African countries. To confront the backlog of cataract operations in Africa, NAB and IsDB began collaborating in 2002 with the first campaign conducted in Niger in March 2003. As a result, 3,394 cataract surgeries were performed between 2003 and 2007. With the support of NAB, IsDB then decided to create the Alliance for Fighting Avoidable Blindness through eight African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Djibouti, Guinea, Niger and Mali. The Alliance is a model of South-South trilateral cooperation, involving IsDB, NGOs and ministries of health, focused on cataract surgeries and human resources enhancement. This five-year programme enabled 250,000 consultations and nearly 50,000 cataract surgeries in cities and rural areas. NAB visited all of the countries, with the teams performing approximately 29,000 cataract surgeries through 80 campaigns. Post-surgery precinct, Conakry, Guinea Image: ATCT