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ndonesia has announced that members of the South-South Cooperation (SSC) must respond accordingly to the current shifts in global challenges that demand greater global cooperation.

In a statement made on Saturday during the high-level roundtable discussion on south-south cooperation at the UN headquarters in New York, Vice President Jusuf Kalla reminded all members to ensure that the cooperation remained relevant.

'€œTo be relevant, South-South Cooperation must be able to respond to the current challenges we face, which include continuing global economic volatility, the growing development gap between countries and within countries, energy and food scarcity, climate change and the threat of radicalism and violent extremism,'€ said Kalla.

'€œWe must strengthen economic cooperation between member states in the areas of trade and investment as well as in technical exchanges. Given the potential that we have closer South-South cooperation can yield significant social-economic benefits, which could give better equality to its members,'€ he said.

The roundtable was also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

As a mandate of the 1955 Asian-African Conference (AAC) which was held in Bandung, West Java, SSC is a manifestation of solidarity among developing countries in South America, Africa and Asia Pacific.

The 1955 AAC was held as a response to the challenges of that time, particularly colonialism and imperialism as well as the ideological divide of the Cold War.

By forging Asian-African solidarity, member nations at the time were able to stand tall and be counted in the global arena by charting an independent course with the development of the Non-Aligned Movement, among other reasons.

The 2015 AAC in Jakarta last April was held to celebrate this can-do spirit, as well as to revitalize the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership and advance South-South and Triangular Cooperation, according to Kalla.

The SSC, according to Kalla, has continued to hold an important position in bringing together various stakeholders from the Global South in the form of global partnerships.

For instance, Indonesia has conducted around 400 capacity development training programs for more than 4000 participants from countries across Asia, Pacific, Africa and Latin America.

Indonesia has has made a commitment to establish an Asian African Centre in the near future.

'€œThis center is intended to be an institutional support to follow up on the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership in multiple areas of interaction, such as G-to-G, B-to-B, and people-to-people,'€ said Kalla, referring to government-to-government and business-to-business cooperation.