First International Conference on South-South Cooperation Knowledge exchanges between nations of the global south can offer new solutions for development challenges - FAO Director-General. Horizontal cooperation between countries of the global South is increasingly important to meeting the sustainable development challenges of our time, said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva at the first International Conference on South-South Cooperation in Marrakesh, Morocco, on 13-14 December 2014. “Many developing countries face similar challenges in food security and agricultural and rural development, and in many cases, the geographic, climatic, and socioeconomic conditions are similar,” the Director-General said.“This makes it easier to adapt successful experiences to local realities.” “FAO’s role is to facilitate the sharing of experiences and development solutions among you,” according to Graziano da Silva, who stressed the Organization’s longstanding support for South-South cooperation. Since 1996, FAO's South-South program has worked to identify needed expertise and connect countries that can benefit from one another, helping deploy over 1,800 experts and technicians in more than 50 countries in the process. The two-day South-South conference (Dec. 13-14) brought together agriculture ministers and high-level representatives of over 20African countries to exchange knowledge on water management, financing and innovation in family farming and build stronger collaboration based on shared experiences and challenges. The Minister for Agriculture and Marine Fisheries of Morocco and host of the event, Aziz Akhannouch, said he hoped the high-level meeting would strengthen our “shared commitment to reduce the agricultural divide and guarantee food security through enhanced South-South cooperation in agriculture." Source: http://www.fao.org/neareast/news/view/en/c/272543/