South–south relationships and the transfer of ‘best practice’: the case of Johannesburg, South Africa

The reconfiguration of economic and political power globally is reshaping the geographies of ‘best practice’ knowledge transfer, with a discernible shift from north–south to south–south learning. In the case of Johannesburg, South Africa, embedded patterns of north–south transfer were at least partially disrupted from around 2000 with a new discourse around south–south cooperation and the emergence of new global coalitions, including IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). South–south transfer has arguably led to policy solutions that are more appropriate to contexts such as Johannesburg, but south–south engagements are not inherently virtuous or immune to the power inequalities and other pitfalls of north–south engagements. New, hybridised patterns of north–south, south–south transfer are emerging within Transnational Municipal Networks (TMCs), but these, too, both entrench and challenge previous relationships.