South-south and triangular cooperation - Brazil

The Brazilian Government adopts the concept of "Trilateral cooperation" rather than "Triangular cooperation," to stress the horizontality between the three (or more) partners. Trilateral cooperation provides a space for development cooperation actors to coordinate efforts and optimize technical and financial resources, resulting in projects with more impact. Brazil has increased its trilateral partnerships, either with developed countries such as Japan, Germany and the US, or with multilateral agencies, such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), International Labour Organization (ILO) and other international organisations. The majority of trilateral projects are funded by Brazil.

Brazil strives to develop South–South cooperation initiatives on the basis of mutually beneficial relationships. The government has also invested technical resources in developing methodologies to quantify Brazilian flows of development cooperation adapted to the way South-South cooperation is structured. Brazil does not consider itself a donor country and, hence, does not adopt OECD´s standards in what regards the quantification of development cooperation flows. Information provided by Brazil for Aid for Trade reports corresponds solely to the quantification of operational costs associated with technical cooperation missions from Brazil to other developing countries, and financial contributions to international financial institutions and development-related funds (Source: ABC 2017).

Triangular cooperation provides a space for development cooperation actors to coordinate efforts, and optimizes their respective resources, resulting in projects that have, in principle, more impact. Moreover, triangular cooperation gives the opportunity for donor countries to get in touch with South–South cooperation practices.

Examples of selected TCB initiatives with Brazilian participation in triangular and South–South cooperation:

Supply capacity

• Project – Support to the Development of the Culture of Rice in Senegal
• The “Cotton-4 Project”, which increases the competitivity of the productive chain of cotton in Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali
• Medicines Factory in Mozambique

Physical trade infrastructure

• Pilot‑project "Institutional Strengthening of the Port Sector of Benin"

The set of initiatives that are part of Brazil’s South–South cooperation includes most of the AfT components. However, the monitoring systems used by Brazil do not specifically address AfT initiatives. ABC keeps two specific systems, which contain the profile of each initiative/project and the financial management of the South–South portfolio.