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Entries in SDGs (10)

Sunday
Jul092017

Southern Innovator and Development Challenges, South-South Solutions | UNOSSC Client

Since 2007, DS Consulting has been working with the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) in UNDP (formerly the United Nations Development Programme’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation), tracking the most exciting event of our times: the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse. Learn more about South-South cooperation from Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93South_cooperation.

On top of documenting the trends and new players shaping this fast-changing world, DS Consulting worked on developing Southern Innovator, launched in May 2011. Southern Innovator (ISSN 2222-9280) is designed by Icelandic graphic designer Sólveig Rolfsdóttir and is intended to showcase innovation-led ways people across the global South are making money and fighting poverty. It is being distributed around the world and online.

“As a communicator, UNOSSC uses a variety of tools to promote, advocate for and share information on South-South cooperation. These tools, which have enabled partners to take leadership and ownership roles, show results and claim credibility, include the annual United Nations Day for SSC, exhibitions at the GSSD Expo [Global South-South Development Expo], Southern Innovator, the quarterly multi-agency “South-South in Action” and the Creative Economy Report.” Compilation of Case Studies on Management of South-South and Triangular Cooperation, March 2015, United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

Strategic framework of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, 2014-2017

In 2013, the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Office for Project Services had this to say:

"In providing secretariat services to the High-level Committee, UNOSSC will provide Member States with evidence-based research and analysis on trends, opportunities and challenges to South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation through reports prepared in collaboration with other United Nations organizations, including the annual reports of the Secretary-General on the state of South-South cooperation, biennial reports to the High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation, policy briefs, public statements, advocacy e-newsletters, the Southern Innovator magazine and many other publications on South-South cooperation and triangular cooperation, as resources permit."

View the PDF of the Strategic Framework for South-South Cooperation here: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/cooperation/en/south_south/docs/unossc_strategic_framework_2014-2017.pdf

Two e-book compilations are also available showing key documents and artwork from the magazine since 2011.

Southern Innovator Magazine from 2012 to 2014: A compilation of documents from the magazine's recent years

Southern Innovator Magazine from 2012 to 2014: A compilation of documents from the magazine's recent years 

Southern Innovator Magazine from 2011 to 2012: A compilation of documents from the magazine's early years 

From 1997 to 1999 I headed the UN's Communications Office in Mongolia. This was a time of great change and crisis in the country. In 1998, I wrote an update on the unfolding political crisis. Mongolia Update - Coverage of 1998 Political Changes can be downloaded here. Some highlights from this briefing include an introduction to the new prime minister (and now current president) and an explanation of the turbulent forces behind Asia's newest democracy. A lively account of this time is Wild East: Travels in the New Mongolia by Jill Lawless. For a thorough account of Mongolia's transition experience, try reading Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists by Morris Rossabi.

Curated content is now also online. This includes:

Mongolia Crisis 1997 to 1999 Resources

GOSH Child Health Portal 2001 to 2003 Resources

 

© David South Consulting 2017

Sunday
Jul092017

Message from Senior Partner | David South Consulting

 

DS Consulting has launched this website, www.davidsouthconsulting.com, and a WordPress blog, www.davidsouthconsulting.org, to explain developments and publish content relevant to health, human development and innovation. It is structured around key practice areas and features past case studies and successes. Over the last six years, the back catalogue of previous work has also been migrated online (http://www.scribd.com/DSConsulting). This includes work rescuing Mongolia’s economy from the biggest peacetime, post-WWII economic collapse and transformative work in child health with the UK’s National Health Service.

You can catch up on my archive of case studies as well at www.davidsouthconsulting.org, and keep abreast of the many changes coming for 2016 and beyond. The case studies are a mix of inspiring stories, insight, analysis and trends: A good snapshot of a fast-changing world.

A great deal of work has gone into laying the foundations for future growth at DS Consulting at its London, UK base. The fruits of this work will become more apparent as 2016 unfolds.

Please send an email if you would like to get in touch or share a thought: mailto: davidsouthconsulting@gmail.com.

David South 

Senior Partner 

DS Consulting

Senior Partner David South at the Sydney Opera House in 2013.


© David South Consulting 2017

Wednesday
Jul292015

Reflecting on What Has Been Accomplished: The David South Consulting Impact Summary | 27 March 2015

 

 

The title David South Consulting Summary of Impact is now available online. It covers work undertaken around the world from 1997 to 2014. This has included the rising use of the Internet to communicate, publishing during a major crisis, the campaign to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), modernizing online health resources and how hospital’s communicate in the 21st century, and chronicling some of the most powerful trends sweeping the planet as the global South increases its wealth. 

As powerful information technologies find their way to even the remotest and poorest places on earth, what is communicated on these platforms becomes more and more important. While governments may believe they can ring-fence and hold back the spreading of ideas – both good and bad, negative and positive – ideas will spread because human beings are ingenious communicators. Even if mobile phones and the Internet were to disappear tomorrow, people would find other ways to spread ideas. The future will be ever-more shaped by those who can spread useful ideas even faster. With the right idea, a problem can be tackled or solved. Most of the problems plaguing today’s world can be solved. The advances made in science and technology in the past half century are mind-boggling and many innovations are held back because of fear societies are just not ready to adapt, or because certain interest groups would rather not share what should be a common human inheritance. A simple newsletter, humble in its design, can have a profound impact if the content resonates with people’s dreams and aspirations; if the knowledge and ideas it contains makes them more powerful or able to act.

A magazine can be so much more than just pretty pictures and nice colours if its content captures a common and shared experience neglected by other media. Southern Innovator magazine is an example of this at work.

David South Consulting Summary of Impact

© David South Consulting 2017

Friday
Jul242015

Bringing Modern Design to Development | 6 November 2010

 

A sample of design used in a project document from Mongolia in 2005. In this project, we took a complex mix of data and tried to build a snapshot of the country situation that was also visually appealing. Note the people icons: specially custom-designed for the Mongolian milieu.

Mongolian MDGs Media Project Infographic 2005

In the development of Creative Sparks, we are drawing on this past experience to create visually clear and instructive images and design for the magazine. One example follows:

Dynamo Smart Charger

 


 

© David South Consulting 2017

Friday
Jul242015

Creative Sparks Magazine Coming | 5 November 2010

Creating a new magazine never fails to engage. The new magazine Creative Sparks is no exception. This new magazine for UNDP’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation is currently in development for a launch in the coming weeks. I shall detail the creative process fully when it is published, but here is a sneak peek at what could be inside:

Woman with Mobile Phone.

Design Team

Locations: London, UK and Reykjavik, Iceland.

Editor and Writer: David South

Graphic Designer and Illustrator: Sólveig Rolfsdóttir

Graphic Designer and Illustrator: Eva Hrönn Guðnadóttir

© David South Consulting 2017

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