Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, together with United Nation Agencies held the “United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation” for Asia and the Pacific to celebrate and recognise the importance of South-South Cooperation and launched a publication on South-South in Action entitled “South-South Volunteering as a driving force for development: Experience and perspective from Asia and the Pacific”. The Book highlights the commitment of volunteer programmes from Asia and Pacific in enhancement of SDGs and important roles of volunteers from countries in the region including Thailand in responding to the COVID-19 situation.

On 14 September 2020, Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and United Nations Volunteers (UNV) organized an event on the “United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation” for Asia and the Pacific at the UN Conference Centre in Bangkok. The UN Day for South-South Cooperation is celebrated by international community on 12 September every year.

Participants included representatives from UN entities in Thailand and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand including Ms. Pattarat Hongtong, Director-General of TICA, MFA, Ms. Gita Sabharwal, UN Resident Coordinator (UNRC) in Thailand, and Mr. Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary, UNESCAP, who jointly inaugurated the event. Over 6,000 people watched the event through Facebook live with more than 1,000 views on other on-line platforms.

At the event, TICA, UNV and UNOSSC launched a publication on South-South in Action entitled “South-South Volunteering as a driving force for development: Experience and perspective from Asia and the Pacific” which illustrated good examples of volunteer programmes that have strong commitment in South-South Cooperation and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are three case studies from Asia and the Pacific in the publication; (1) Volunteering for My Community, Cambodia (2) Beijing Volunteer Service Federation (BVF), People’s Republic of China, and (3) Friends From Thailand Volunteer Programme (FFT), Thailand. In this session, Mr. Phuttiphum Arsanok, FFT volunteer in Benin, presented the roles and experiences of Thai volunteer together with volunteers from Cambodia and China (via Video recording). UNOSSC also took this opportunity to present the results of the survey on “Priority for COVID-19 Recovery and South-South Cooperation in Asia-Pacific”.

Speaking at the event, representatives from the UN and Governments reiterated the importance of volunteers in responding to COVID-19 citing Thailand as a success story in managing the pandemic. Volunteers also serve as a driving force in sharing and exchanging good practices and homegrown development approaches that can be applied in each country based on local conditions. For Thailand, the role of youth as volunteers was recognized as an active player in helping countries achieve SDGs through the application of the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (SEP) in their respective assignments. Representative of Thailand also took this opportunity to announce that the Royal Thai Government, in collaboration with ESCAP and UNOSSC, will co-host the Eleventh Global South-South Development (GSSD) Expo in 2021 in Bangkok.