Tossd From a Brazilian Perspective

Equipe Técnica: Jhonatan do Rosário Ferreira, José Alejandro Sebastian Barrios Díaz, José Eduardo Malta de Sá Brandão, José Romero Pereira Júnior, Priscilla Mayna da Silva Lima Santana e Renato Coelho Baumann das Neves
 

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The measurement of international cooperation in developing countries is a new process underway in México, Costa Rica, Brazil and other countries. The measurement process is key to give visibility to the resources invested by governments and to present each country’s strategic vision of its cooperation initiatives.

This process occurs in the wake of fundamental changes registered in recent decades, such as the greater engagement of developing countries in the field of international cooperation. In particular, South-South cooperation has grown in terms of resources and geographical distribution, as well as in multiple approaches, classifications and strategies. Countries from the South do not always subscribe to definitions and measurement procedures as adopted by the traditional donors.

The Brazilian government, via the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), an agency linked to the Ministry of Economy, has systematically divulged the statistics of the Brazilian cooperation to development in the past ten years, in a report called Cobradi (Brazilian Cooperation for International Development).1 The Institute has developed its own methodology for quantifying international cooperation, based on the particularities of the country and its budgetary process.

Jointly designed by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE), and the Institute for Applied Economics Research (Ipea), in partnership with a number of other federal institutions, Cobradi compiles data and information about the main activities that Brazil has carried out with other developing countries, both bilaterally and via multilateral agencies. These initiatives encompass a broad range of areas, such as technical, educational, scientific and technological cooperation, as well as humanitarian aid, assistance to refugees, maintenance of peacekeeping forces and contributions to international organizations.

Since 2010 Ipea has published five editions covering the following periods: 2005-2009; 2010; 2011-2013; 2014-2016; 2017-2018 (in print). The report also proposes an overview of Brazilian cooperation practices, including the following activities: the deployment of civil servants to disseminate successful Brazilian policies; foreign students training through scholarship grants and access to Brazilian educational institutions; participation in international science and technology networks, contributions to the mitigation of humanitarian problems, support for the integration of refugees in Brazil and participation in the country’s peacekeeping operations.

The Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD)2 is an attempt to build a new international statistical framework to monitor official resources and private funding mobilized by official interventions in support of sustainable development. TOSSD is being developed by an International Task Force of experts from developed countries, developing countries and multilateral organizations.

Since 2018, Brazil, through Ipea, ABC and Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), has participated in the International Task Force. The country has been contributing to the development of the methodology also from the perspective of a South-South Cooperation player.

It is on this basis that, as a country with its own experience in quantifying development cooperation, Brazil is prepared to report under TOSSD the following topics:

1. Contributions to multilateral organizations
2. Technical cooperation projects and programs
3. Contributions to Peacekeeping Operations
4. Contributions for migrants and refugees in Brazil
5. Humanitarian cooperation
6. Scholarships, training and courses

This paper is divided in four sections. Following these introductory remarks, sections two and three draw on the possibility of using TOSSD as the framework to report Brazilian development Cooperation by comparing the variables and examining the multiple intersections between Cobradi and TOSSD. Section four brings some final remarks relative to the required adaptation of both Cobradi and TOSSD.

Tossd From a Brazilian Perspective