Decoding India's Leadership in South Asia for Accelerating Sustainable Development and Climate Solutions

This article composed by Prof. Susmita Mitra and Dr Nitya Nanda explores India's possible role in advancing SSC in South Asia, focusing on the GEF-SGP as a model for promoting communitydriven environmental action and fostering regional collaboration.

- Prof. Susmita Mitra and Dr Nitya Nanda

The authors opine—the SGP offers a viable platform for successful uptake and replication and improvement of the impact and durability of exchanges bringing communities and government officials together to discuss common challenges and to share solutions that have worked, creating networks and establishing a community of practitioners; and using peer-to-peer exchanges to enable participants to learn about a previously applied solution and avoid repeating mistakes.

South-South Cooperation (SSC) has emerged as a vital mechanism for fostering sustainable development among countries in the Global South. By emphasizing mutual benefits, resource sharing, and knowledge exchange, SSC addresses the distinct challenges faced by developing nations. In their recent article Environment and Sustainable Development in South Asia in the Routledge Handbook of South Asia, Nanda and Mitra (2024) argue that SSC is indispensable in this region, where countries confront intertwined issues of climate vulnerability, environmental degradation, and poverty. As the largest country in the region, India holds the potential to play a pivotal role as a regional leader. In the current geopolitical scenario, effective regional cooperation in South Asia seems difficult. But in a fast-changing world, it is quite possible that situation will improve soon.