Emerging development partners can play an extremely important role in international cooperation because they have accumulated valuable experience and knowledge identifying and implementing their own development solutions. The potential impact of accumulated knowledge of the South could be enormous – if it is fully mobilised. The objective of this article is to gather insights into the potential and challenges in development cooperation for new development partners by drawing from a case study on Indonesia. Indonesia is a member of the G20 and a pioneering emerging development partner that is mainstreaming knowledge-centred South–South cooperation. The ‘Indonesian model’ is found to be flexible and pragmatic, with a significant emphasis on technical cooperation and without a strong regional or specific-country focus. The country’s experiences and its innovative use of South–South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) might be considered valuable for other emerging development partners looking for a modality of effective SSTC.