Closing Ceremony and Annual South-South Cooperation Awards

The Closing Segment and Annual South-South Cooperation Awards Ceremony (23 November 2012)

The Closing Ceremony of the GSSD Expo 2012 was a grand celebration of the event’s successes. Eminent leaders in South-South and triangular cooperation, including government officials, leaders of United Nations agencies and intergovernmental organizations, and other significant leaders of Southern initiatives shared their ongoing commitment to South-South cooperation and highlight the importance of it going forward.

“This year’s Expo has demonstrated the power of the Global South to respond efficiently to the crosscutting development challenges posed by energy insecurity and climate change”, Mr. Taizo Nishikawa, Deputy Director-General of UNIDO, said in his closing remarks.

The ceremony ended with a grand performance of the Vienna Musikschule Favoriten, and presentations of the annual South-South Cooperation Awards. The Annual South-South Cooperation Awards celebrated those solutions that stood out as global in scope, reach and impact and exemplary of the most important elements of South-South cooperation: innovation, partnership and leadership.

The three awardees of the 2012 Annual South-South Cooperation Awards in these categories are:

Partnership – Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio), Costa Rica

Innovation – India's IMPEX (SUNLITE): An Off-Grid Solar Lighting Initiative

Leadership – Brazil and Mozambique for Biofuels Productions, FGV Foundation

To see pictures from the Closing Day, click here.

GSSD Expo 2011: UNIDO wins the Innovation Award

UNIDO was awarded with last year’s South-South Cooperation Award for Innovation. This award was presented to the solution, "Solar Power for Irrigation in Mozambique", funded by FAO and UNIDO.

The South-South Cooperation Award for innovation was given to the solution that best showed the creativity needed to address the challenges of today, especially in showcasing interventions that would overcome critical constraints in the agricultural value chains, thus enhancing food production, creating employment and improving nutrition.