São Paulo – Brazilian municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants and state governments may create projects for cooperation with African countries and Haiti and receive up to US$200.000 to implement them. The Secretariat for Institutional Relations (SRI, in the Portuguese acronym) of the Brazilian presidency should launch the initiative this Wednesday (13) afternoon, via the Secretariat for Federative Affairs.
According to the press office of the SRI, the measure is unprecedented in international cooperation. Projects may be submitted from May 15th to September 5th. According to the Secretariat for Institutional Relations, the aim is to help address the challenges of developing and strengthening public policies in those countries.
The rules for project submission are specified in the "Call for French-Brazilian Decentralized Trilateral Cooperation Projects to the Benefit of Haiti and the African Continent," which should be issued this Wednesday. The launch event should be attended by the chief minister of the SRI, Luiz Sérgio, the deputy chief of the Secretariat of Federative Affairs, Olavo Noleto, the director of the Brazilian Cooperation Agency, Marco Farani, among others.
The proposals will be evaluated by a technical committee comprising Brazilian and French representatives. Projects may be submitted in the areas of local governance, agriculture, food security, sanitation, water resources, education, professional training, urban mobility, healthcare, sustainable development and environment, infrastructure and urbanization.
The initiative is backed by the National Alliance of Mayors, the Embassies of France, Haiti and Zimbabwe, and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
