The many challenges now facing the international community called for stronger and more innovative cooperation between developing countries -– particularly neighbouring States -- as well as between them and developed countries, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said today as she helped to open the most significant United Nations meeting on the subject in decades, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Officials from dynamic emerging economies asserted today that their Governments were ready to improve socio-economic conditions at home and help raise development prospects across the global South, proof that many developing countries were now capable of taking the lead in designing and implementing their own long-term development plans.

As it concluded in Nairobi, Kenya, today, the High-Level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation encouraged developing countries –- with support from developed countries and international organizations –- to take concrete steps to make their cooperative efforts work better in tackling the serious challenges they faced in achieving socio-economic advancement.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, highlighting the contribution of cooperatives to socio-economic development. In adopting resolution 64/136 on 18 December, the Assembly noted that cooperatives impact poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration.

Government officials and development experts from small island developing States are conducting a series of regional meetings to discuss how their sustainable development plans are faring in a difficult global financial environment and at a time when the impact of climate change is being more keenly felt.