Pretoria - With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline looming closer, South Africa has called for strengthened South-South Cooperation towards achieving the 2015 targets.
"It is critical that decisive action be taken to achieve the MDGs by the target date of 2015. South-South Cooperation is increasingly important in this regard, as is the role of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation," International Relations Deputy Minister, Marius Fransman, told the Leadership Round Table of the Global South-South Development Expo on Monday.
He said it was important for developing countries of the south to reinforce interdependence among themselves through investment, trade and technology transfer.
Fransman said the ongoing challenges facing the global community such as the food crisis, financial and economic crises, and climate change exacerbate the inhumane and dehumanizing conditions of the marginalized poor.
The MDGs are a set of targets established by the United Nations in 2000, aimed at responding to the world's development challenges, among them, the alleviation of poverty.
However, with the economic crisis, some developed countries have limited their funding to fight poverty in African countries.
