Trilateral Cooperation Brazil-Germany

Context

Brazil has a long history of international technical cooperation involvement as a partner for south-south or trilateral cooperation. As such, it builds on solutions originally developed to overcome challenges of its own. Brazil has achieved success in diverse fields such as poverty reduction, social development, vocational training, technical innovation and environmental regulation. In recognition of that success, demand has been growing in other countries for Brazilian expertise in technical cooperation projects. 

Germany and Brazil are considered international leaders in the provision of trilateral cooperation. Combining the two countries’ strengths offers great potential to generate relevant and innovative solutions for the development of other countries. They have been jointly implementing projects in African and Latin American countries since 2010.

Objective

The promotion of new cooperative relations and by innovative capacity development measures have improved the effectiveness of the Brazil-Germany trilateral cooperation.

Approach

The last phase of the programme consisted of two areas of activity. The first aimed to establish new partnerships and expand cooperation relations previously established under trilateral projects to ensure their greater integration in the development context of third-party countries, and to promote the dissemination of their results and impacts both regionally and internationally. So far three trilateral projects were fully implemented and five were planned during the execution of the programme and began implementation by the Regional Fund for Trilateral Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Classic projects implemented: 

• Institutional strengthening of the National Institute of Metrology of Mozambique
• Risk management and prevention of natural disasters in Mozambique
• Environmental Technology Center in Peru

Classic projects in force: 

• Improved cashew planting material and by-product processing technologies for Ghana
• Knowledge management in Research, Technology Transfer and Innovation in Biodiversity
• Energy Efficiency (industrial sector and labelling) and Distributed Generation in Bolivia
• Innovation of drought resistant forage systems in the mesothermic valleys of Cochabamba in Bolivia
• Strengthening Technical and Institutional Capacities for Integral Fire Management in Ecuador's Natural Heritage

The second area involves the development of innovative forms of trilateral cooperation, focusing mainly on capacity building measures. This programme started in 2017 and was named Human Capacity Development (HCD). The courses were conducted by organsations in the Brazilian sector with support from Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The technical content of the training is the main responsibility of Brazilian organisations, while the German side focuses on supporting knowledge transfer methodologies, as well as providing tools to monitor and evaluate the results and impacts of training.

In response to the demands expressed by developing countries, especially in Africa and Latin America, ABC and GIZ agree with the training objectives, support the identification of organisations in the Brazilian sector with extensive experience in the relevant field and support the preparation and monitoring of the measures which are carried out in Brazil.

The second area involves developing innovative forms of trilateral cooperation, focusing on capacity building measures. The HCD programme was carried out by Brazilian sector organisations that provide the technical content of the training with support from GIZ and ABC. The technical content of the training was the main responsibility of Brazilian organisations, while the German side focused on supporting knowledge transfer methodologies, as well as providing tools to monitor and evaluate the results and impacts of training.

In response to demands expressed by developing countries, especially in Africa and Latin America, ABC and GIZ agreed upon the goals of the training, identified Brazilian sector organisations with extensive experience in the relevant field and jointly prepared, implemented, monitored and evaluated the capacity building measures, .

In 2017 and 2018, five courses with eleven different institutions from developing countries were offered:

• Photovoltaic systems
• Environmental impact evaluation
• Environmental education in the context of family farming 
• Management for results in protected areas
• Management of contaminated areas

Results

• Five new projects were developed based on the trilateral cooperation manual, jointly developed by ABC and GIZ
• A total of twelve financial resources, personnel or institutional contributions that were not initially planned have been achieved for three trilateral projects;
• Six contributions from five trilateral projects have been incorporated into the regional, sectoral or international debate;
• Five international training programmes were designed and implemented with the following Brazilian partner organisations: National Service of Industrial Training - SENAI, Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources -IBAMA, Brazilian Ministry of Environment – MMA, Chico Mendes Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity – ICMBio, and São Paulo State Environmental Company – CETESB;
• The courses have trained a total of 72 participants from twelve public institutions of Angola, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and Brazil.
• Ten out of twelve participating institutions on the HCD courses have implemented their action plans after returning to their countries.