The Vice Minister Foreign Affairs of Panama, Mr. Francisco Álvarez De Soto, will officially open the South-South Cooperation Fair Knowledge from the South: Regional Exchange of Solutions on May 8th, 2012 at 19:00 hours. Mr. Niki Fabiancic, UNDP Deputy Director of the Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. Yiping Zhou, Director of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Mr. Jorge Arosemena, Director of the City of Knowledge Foundation, will also speak at the opening ceremony.

Working sessions will be start on Wednesday, May 9th at 09:00 with the panel "South-South Cooperation for Social Development", led by Ms. Josephine Ojiambo, from the Presidency of the General Assembly High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation; Ms. Kim Bolduc, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Representative in Panama; and Ms. Mayra Arosemena, Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Panama.

After this panel, at 09:45 hours, former President of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, Mr. Tabaré Vázquez, will introduce the session on " South-South Cooperation Strategies for the Advancement of the Social Development Agenda”. Mr. Vazquez will also give a lecture about "Advances in Education and Technology. A response from the SSC” on Wednesday at 15:00 hours, which will include the participation of Mr. Arosemena and Mrs. Elena Rodríguez, Administrator of the Cooperation School of the Postgraduate International Institute of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalunya).

At 17:30 hours, Mr. Andrés Fuentes, Director of International Cooperation of the Economy and Finance Ministry will present the South-South Cooperation experiences from Panama.

On Thursday, May 10th at 13:30 hours, Mr. Francisco Simplicio, Chief of the Knowledge and Programme Management Division of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation of UNDP, Mrs. Patricia González, Manager of the Technical Unit of the Ibero-American Programme to Strengthen SSC, and Mr. Philip Schönrock, Director of CEPEI will participate in the panel on "Strengthening the SSC platforms", chaired by Mr. Enrique Maruri, Techncial Secretary, OECD Task Team on SSC.

Likewise, representatives of cooperation agencies, United Nations agencies, donors and the academia will participate in other of the sessions scheduled for debate and exchange of experiences.

Finally, Mr. Tomás Guardia, Director General for International Organizations and Conferences of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mr. Freddy Justiniano, Director a.i. of UNDP Regional Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean will participate at the closing ceremony.