Technical Cooperation

The Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) was created in 1987 to function as the unit within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil (MRE) in charge of planning, coordinating, negotiating, approving, implementing, monitoring and evaluating technical cooperation received from abroad, as well as the technical cooperation provided outside the country. ABC is also in charge of the Brazilian Humanitarian Cooperation.

The technical cooperation programs, projects and activities developed by the Brazilian government cover all fields of knowledge under bilateral, trilateral, multilateral, regional cooperation modalities or with a group of countries.

Cooperation Offered From Abroad

The technical cooperation offered from abroad to Brazil is an important instrument for national development, which allows the country to promote structural changes through the training of federal, state and municipal institutions and the sharing of technology and knowledge not yet fully mastered by national entities.

Foreign cooperation to Brazil has delivered over 5,000 initiatives under two different modalities: multilateral and bilateral cooperation. The first modality (multilateral cooperation) involves an international organization, while the second modality (bilateral cooperation) involves a developed country, such as Germany, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, among others.

Brazilian Cooperation Abroad (South-South Cooperation - SSC)

The technical cooperation provided by Brazil abroad is usually called South-South Cooperation (CSS). South-South Cooperation takes place in response to requests received from foreign governments through bilateral channels or via international organizations with which the country maintains trilateral cooperation programmes. In this regard, the initiatives can be bilateral, trilateral or with a regional group of countries.

ABC has a record of nearly 3,000 SSC projects in at least 108 countries with the participation of more than 120 Brazilian institutions, public and private alike, which are acknowledged and recognized for their technical excellence and/or which have experience and a proven track record of contributing to economic and social development. The Agency also operates through strategic alliances with developed countries. In this case, a trilateral cooperation is offered, through which the resources of a developed partner are combined with the Brazilian experience for a joint application in a partner developing country. In addition, ABC has entered into partnerships with 45 international organizations and group of countries. The technical cooperation offered abroad by Brazil makes use of the installed capacity of its specialized national institutions.

Decentralized Cooperation

Cooperation is increasingly more "decentralized" as international cooperation initiatives are no longer carried out at a national (or federal level in the case of Brazil) but at the State and Municipal level. The federal Government maintains regular contacts with the federative entities (i.e. the states and municipalities) through ABC, whose purpose is to draw up the instruments that will support this type of cooperation and allow for a smoother dialogue and exchange of information. The objective of this type of technical cooperation is also to share knowledge and successful practices between public institutions in Brazilian federative units and public institutions of subnational units in partner countries.

To fulfil its institutional duties, ABC publishes technical handbooks and manuals while maintaining information systems for the purpose of keeping a record and following up the cooperation programmes implemented with foreign governments and international organizations. This work involves institutional partnerships with other bodies, such as the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada – IPEA) and the Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia – IBICT). The technical handbooks and information systems provide very relevant guidelines and useful information for national cooperating entities to adequately structure their proposals for cooperation projects and to qualify for the follow-up of project implementation.