Assessing the Role of South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from IBSA Countries

Abstract

“Things are going wrong not because of market failures. The problem is much deeper than that. Mainstream free-market theory suffers from a conceptualization failure, a failure to capture the essence of what it is to be human.” (Yunus, 2007) Unequal distribution of wealth and failure of institutions, state and market as a whole have forced the scholars and thinkers all over the globe to search for an alternative form of economy (Zahra et al., 2008) which will be free from distortion, exploitation and restrictions (Elson, 2000). Instead of globalization, which has failed, the world is in the quest for ‘fair globalization’ to address the real grass root level needs of the society. In achieving the ideal form of social economy there is the necessity to stand together with the spirit of cooperation and solidarity in order to ensure the inclusive sustainable growth and creation of decent world of work for all (Levaggi, 2016). The very concept of Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) rests on the idea of amalgam of ‘Solidarity Economy’ and ‘Social Economy’. Lewis (2007) defines ‘Social Economy’ as the third system of the economy (which exists in the form of organizations such as NGOs, SHGs, Cooperative Societies, etc.) which is supporting the first system of the economy, i.e. the private profit making organizations and the second system of the economy that is the Government or State or public organizations. The organizations under the third system are different from that of the first and second system of the economy in prioritizing the social objectives or goals for sustainable inclusive development on top over the traditional and outmoded objective of either profit maximization or value maximization. On the other hand ‘Solidarity Economy’ is a pluralistic concept unlike other past social movements which aims at changing the focus from the narrow objective of profit or wealth maximization under the neoliberal capitalist economic system to the ‘people’ and ‘planet’ only (Lewis and Swinney, 2007). Thus the underlying objective of ‘Solidarity Economy’ is to question the Triple Bottom Line Model and seeks to establish Double Bottom-line Model by only considering ‘people’ and ‘planet’ and eliminating ‘profit’ from the structure. Naturally SSE is a dependable, credible and alternative form of economic systems which puts ‘people’ and ‘planet’ at the first place unlike in a neoliberal capitalist economic systems.