The three nations, from different economies and different continents working together to drive the exchange of resources, technology, and ideas between countries of the Global South, launched the latest report of the India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation, known as the IBSA Fund.
The IBSA Fund, which is managed by the UN Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), was established in 2004 and has since supported projects through partnerships with local governments and institutions. Its objectives range from promoting food security and addressing HIV/AIDS, to extending access to safe drinking water.
The Atta-Habib Medical Center, destroyed in the 2014 Gaza conflict, serves around 30,000 people and is the only health institute at the eastern side of Gaza City. The Fund hopes that its reconstruction will help in Gaza’s recovery plans and will aid restoring a sense of normalcy among the population.
The IBSA Fund, looks not only to help out financially, but to share capacities, experiences, and knowledge.
Among other examples of the Fund’s activities, in Sudan, a project piloted a labor-intensive working model to rapidly create employment opportunities for 2,000 unskilled and semi-skilled young laborers; in Fiji, the Fund is teaching women to manufacture and maintain their own rocket cookstoves so that they can switch from open fire cooking and increase their knowledge about climate change adaption and mitigation; and in Haiti, teenagers are being trained in entrepreneurial capacities so that they can start their own business and have a wider access to the labour market.
IBSA called for greater efforts to combat poverty and hunger across the global South during the South-South Development Expo 2017.