South-South Cooperation: The Experience of the Inter-American Social Protection Network.

• Position: INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE AMERICAS - Essay

Given the urgent challenge of reducing extreme poverty and inequality in the world, the international community has committed to building stronger and more effective cooperation mechanisms that will make it possible for developing countries to reach their Millennium Development Goals. While the region of Latin America and the Caribbean is not the poorest in the world, it is the region with the most unequal distribution of income. That's why the OAS has taken such an important role in stepping up to these challenges through multilateral efforts within the framework of solidarity and cooperation.

At the global level, the declarations on aid effectiveness made in Paris in 2005 and in Accra in 2008 have helped to stimulate new ways of conceptualizing South-South cooperation within Latin America and the Caribbean. Special emphasis is being given to the horizontal generation of capacities and to the role that new international actors like emerging economies can play in this effort.

In the area of South-South cooperation, the transfer of knowledge and the exchange of social protection experiences have also become increasingly important. A high political priority is being given to publicizing the policies and programs in this area, and this is reflected in a diversity of recent activities.

One example is the United Nations Social Protection Floor Initiative launched in 2009 in response to the global economic crisis. Its purpose is to promote "strategies that protect a minimum level of access to essential services and income security for all."

The Millennium Development Goals Summit outcome document, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2010, indicates that "social protection systems that address and reduce inequality and social exclusion are essential for protecting the gains towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals."

In the academic world, social protection has become a priority topic in public-policy analysis for developing countries. One study published in 2008 by the University of Manchester, England, Social Prótection for the Poor and the Poorest: Concepts, Policies, and Politics , states that "social protection constitutes an effective response to poverty and vulnerability in developing countries."

Regionally, the Heads of State and Government of the Americas who met at the Fifth Summit of the Americas (Trinidad and Tobago, April 2009) committed to exchanging information about policies, experiences, programs, and...