Brazil and Chile Bolster Technical and Humanitarian Cooperation Program

The Director of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), Ambassador Ruy Pereira, visited Chile last week and met on January 18th with the Executive Director of the Chilean Agency for Development Cooperation (AGCID), Ambassador Cristián Jara. The objective of the meeting was to deepen the ties of technical and humanitarian cooperation between both Agencies and the discussion of the work agenda for 2022. A bilateral technical cooperation project on public defense and training in oral litigation was signed on the occasion.

At the opening session, Ruy Pereira pointed out that the meeting gives continuity to the bilateral understandings agreed upon during the videoconference held with Ambassador Jara in late 2021. Ambassador Cristián Jara highlighted the importance of intensifying the dialogue between the two Agencies for a deeper institutional strengthening.

The directors discussed a broad work agenda involving the proposed schedule of three bilateral projects, which are in the signing phase, as well as other initiatives that are under negotiation. In the trilateral cooperation modality, updates were given on the implementation of the project between Brazil, Chile and Suriname, in the area of sanitary defense and food safety, as well as updates on the status of negotiations involving two projects of South-South decentralized technical cooperation. The perspectives and modalities of multilateral and humanitarian cooperation were also examined.

Interagency Exchange Program

Negotiations to continue the Interagency Exchange Program, interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to be resumed in the first half of 2022, was also a topic of discussion at the meeting.

In the program, ABC and ACGID send representatives for the purposes of a professional exchange in cooperation, according to previously chosen topics or sectors. For the next cycle, the directors agreed that the choice of professionals should prioritize those working in the following areas: decentralized cooperation, cooperation funds, humanitarian aid, mental health, and water resources management.

According to the Director of ABC, the internships occurred in 2019 represented, for both Agencies, gains in the negotiation of projects. "The proximity established through the exchanges provided better understandings in the negotiations of the II Meeting of the Bilateral Technical Cooperation Working Group, held in September 2019," Ruy Pereira pointed out.

Project Signing

The bilateral technical cooperation project signed during the meeting, entitled "Strengthening the Public Defender's Office in Statistics Systems, Data Registration, and Training in Oral Litigation", aims to promote an exchange of best practices between the Public Defender's Offices of both countries in the field of data registration; oral litigation; and the defense of members of the most vulnerable populations (indigenous people, for example) in hearings and judicial proceedings. Additionally, it seeks to contribute to the expansion of access to justice for these populations. The initiative will be in effect for two years and the technical implementing institutions will be the Criminal Public Defender's Office of Chile and the Public Defender's Office of the Union of Brazil, with respective coordination by AGCID and ABC.