The Financial Dimension of South-South Cooperation: Reflections on its Prospects and Potential in the Pandemic Context

Abstract

Nowadays the role of South-South cooperation has acquired particular connotations. These particularities are part of an eroded international scenario defined by North-South flows of asymmetric traditional cooperation. All this happens in a context characterized by proliferation of institutions connecting partners within the global South and also due to the creation of regional development funds worldwide. Because of the crisis of the multilateralism and the weakening of the traditional channels and practices of international cooperation, several international organizations and experts acknowledge the need for including all possible efforts to overcome the recession deepened by the pandemic. Thus, the South-South cooperation role is highlighted as part of these efforts. Therefore, the objective of this article is to analyze the financial dimension of South-South cooperation to determine to what extent it can be considered as a key tool in the projection of assertive actions within the pandemic context and from the global South perspective. It is argued that, although this cooperation should not monopolize all the responses coming from the South, it entails a possibility in a process of diversification of cooperation alternatives aiming to position itself in the international scenario.