Itamaraty in the fight against COVID-19 (International District Magazine, n. 1, December 27, 2021)

I extend my gratitude to the Government of the Federal District for the opportunity to share these notes and review some initiatives of Itamaraty that have been part of the government action of President Jair Bolsonaro since Covid-19 impacted the world. Commenting on the work that has been carried out represents an exercise in accountability and transparency, much needed in any mature democracy.

More than 18 months after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, officially declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, it is appropriate to appraise, albeit partially, what the Brazilian diplomacy has done to face the challenge it has imposed on Brazil and the world. 

It is difficult to measure the impact caused by the pandemic in terms of loss of life, economic damage, and increasing international instability. Millions of casualties, closed schools, separated families, restrictions on travel and displacements in general, the virtual shutdown of entire sectors of the global economy, and the biggest recession since World War II. It was in this context that I assumed the honorable task entrusted to me by President Jair Bolsonaro to lead the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From the beginning, health diplomacy was placed at the top of our priorities, as it should be, side by side with the economic recovery and the efforts for sustainable development.

It has been a period of enormous challenges but, more importantly, of learning and intense work. We moved, in only a few weeks, from the tasks of problem identification, diagnosis, and analysis to activities of capacity building, risk mitigation, and elaboration of responses. It has been a true exercise of crisis management, requiring creativity, dynamism, and adaptation from us.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has shown resilience to the presented challenges and demonstrated its ability to defend the national interest and to provide quality services to Brazilian citizens. 

In this unprecedented moment for our generation, have been able to once again verify the merits of the Constitution when establishing the principles that govern our international relations, with an emphasis on “cooperation among peoples for the progress of humanity”. Under this ideal, Itamaraty has developed important initiatives, which, without a doubt, have helped in the national mobilization to contain the virus and its negative effects on Brazilian people’s lives. 

Brazil's traditional international presence in the health field has been strengthened and improved. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health have acted hand in hand in this effort, aimed at exchanging information, discussing good practices, obtaining medicines and hospital supplies, and developing and acquiring vaccines against Covid-19.

Itamaraty has acted decisively to import immunization doses and the substances needed for their production (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient – API). One cannot fail to emphasize the role played by donations at the height of the fight against the pandemic. Itamaraty has coordinated the offers received by Brazil from friendly nations, including medicines, personal protective equipment, and laboratory machines. We have also been able to give our contribution, by responding to requests from 24 partner countries, mainly through the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), which in 2020 received extraordinary resources in the amount of BRL 28 million for exclusive use in international humanitarian cooperation actions to confront Covid-19. 

Brazil has been working both on the development of its own vaccines and on the creation of technological capacity to produce components of foreign vaccines used in the country. We intend to supply immunization doses to other countries as soon as domestic production allows us, giving priority to our partners in Latin America.

One of President Bolsonaro's central directives in dealing with the pandemic is that our work should aim at protecting both health and jobs. Bearing this in mind, Itamaraty has made extensive use of economic diplomacy to seek conditions to support the Brazilian economy, to ensure access to strategic inputs for the fight against the crisis, and the ability to acquire technology for vaccines. 

In the debate on intellectual property within the WTO, Brazil has underlined that a possible decision to relax TRIPS Agreement's protections (be it a moratorium, the expansion of the Agreement's flexibilities, or a hybrid solution) should be implemented as soon as possible, in order to contribute to the production of vaccines and other treatments to fight the pandemic.

Also in 2020, at the multilateral level, together with the other G20 members, Brazil has supported the document "G20 Actions to Support World Trade and Investment in Response to Covid-19", which provides for collective actions in trade regulation and facilitation, transparency, operation of logistical networks, support for micro, small and medium-sized companies, support for the multilateral trade system, resilience-building in global value chains and strengthening international investments.

Our participation in multilateral and regional development banks has also channeled the relevant contribution that such institutions can provide to member countries. Within the External Financing Commission (COFIEX), a national collegiate body in which Itamaraty participates, the highlight was the approval of the “Emergency Program to Support the Income of Vulnerable Populations Affected by Covid-19 in Brazil”, with financing from six of those organizations, totaling US$4 billion, which significantly contributed to the implementation of public policies in the three spheres of the federation.

Another area in which Itamaraty has acted intensively in the fight against the pandemic was the consular service. It is hard to imagine any period in recent decades when consular diplomacy was in as much demand as it was in the early stages of the pandemic. Without much planning, unilateral measures were adopted overnight by dozens of countries. Thousands of Brazilians on foreign soil were taken by surprise.

We had to redouble our efforts in the consular area to assist Brazilian expatriates who turned to our offices for assistance. As a member of the Brazilian government’s Inter-Ministerial Executive Group on Public Health Emergency of National and International Importance, Itamaraty engaged with this inter-agency mechanism to collect and systematize information on the volume of Brazilians retained abroad as a result of the health emergency. 

Within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we created working groups for "Emergency consular assistance", which were organized by regions, and we designated officers who were available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to help the public, through telephone numbers disclosed on our social networks and other institutional channels. These efforts enabled the Brazilian government to repatriate more than 38,800 nationals stranded abroad. Of this total, more than 8,000 Brazilians were repatriated on 37 flights chartered directly by the Ministry, coming from around 100 countries, using resources granted by executive orders edited by President Bolsonaro.

The crisis that humanity is yet to overcome exposed our weaknesses and the risks we are subject to. If there is one thing we – both, organizations and individuals – certainly need to internalize in our work, it is the importance of the unpredictable and the influence it has on the work we do every day.

I believe more analytical effort is needed to understand the nature of the crises we are likely to face in the future. Until recently, we used to think that major threats to the security and stability of international relations would be the result of military clashes, terrorist attacks, economic shocks, and other related factors.

The pandemic appears to have considerably expanded the awareness of the challenges we will have to address. We will have to pay attention to issues ranging from the emergence of zoonoses to environmental disasters, cybersecurity and climate change. Understanding such problems demands a multidisciplinary approach, and the capacity to solve them depends on the coordinated action of the State, involving the three branches of power and the three levels of government, always in dialogue and collaboration with the different segments of our society.

Ambassador Carlos Alberto Franco França

Minister of Foreign Affairs

International District Magazine's issue: https://internacional.df.gov.br/escritorio-de-assuntos-internacionais-do-gdf-lanca-revista-distrito-internacional/