The South –South cooperation started way back in 2003 between India-South Africa and Brazil in what is called as India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA). It was an important forum then between the developing countries and still has the potential to grow, but during the past five years it has become diluted.
The main aim of this forum was to provide a platform whereby the developing countries can unite and augment their bargaining power, so that they have a greater say in the multilateral organisations and create a just economic system.
Apart from having presidential summits and forming working groups in areas like agriculture, energy, defence, etc the meetings of the group since 2012 has been irregular and few. There have been debates as to whether IBSA would survive the test because apart from financial and political constraints, the intra trade between the member countries has also become rather slow. The reason for its slow progress can be multifarious, ranging from the creation of a more potent institution called BRICS to the emergence of new leadership in all these countries. However; the fact remains that it has the potential to grow, as in the past it did do some good work in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In spite of having a meagre fund (each country contributing 1million per year) it carried out projects in Burundi, where the IBSA Fund supported the government’s capacity to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, in Cape Verde, a public health center was reformed, in Guinea-Bissau, an agricultural project was implemented and so on.
The article “The Uncertain Future of IBSA” by Oliver Stuenkel at http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/02/18/uncertain-future-of-ibsa/i2j5?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRols6nBZKXonjHpfsX76O8sUaCg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YAJT8V0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D gives an insight to this initiative and is an interesting read. We would like to know your suggestions and comments on this initiative so that IBSA can grow strong.