Cairo – After three days of intense discussion with representatives of the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity, the delegation of the Brazilian Ministry of Social Development and Hunger Alleviation has concluded its work in Cairo. The talks were deemed very promising with regard to promoting cooperation between the two countries in the social sphere. To the Brazilians, the visit has brought them closer to the Egyptian reality and led to a quality leap in cooperation work.
“Through our discussions we identify, little by little, similar elements in our realities. That is essential for the necessary foundations for joint work to be laid,” said the general manager for benefits of the Family Purse programme of the Brazilian government, Anderson Brandão. “The discussions did not cease during those three days, and we noticed that the Egyptian ministry representatives tried to make use of each minute to try and understand the slightest technical details concerning the functioning of the Brazilian social programmes,” he added.
According to the members of the Brazilian group, the Egyptian minister of Social Solidarity, Ali El-Sayed Al-Moselhy, considers it necessary to carry out further work, by means of a new exchange of Brazilian and Egyptian technicians. “He proposed a plan to us involving the exchange of specialists for longer periods, of three or four weeks, in each country,” explained Carla Chelotti, the diplomat in charge of the social area at the Brazilian embassy in Cairo.
According to her, the minister’s proposal entails an initial visit of a Brazilian specialist to Egypt, for the elaboration of a study on the local reality. “Afterwards, a technician in the social area of the Egyptian ministry would go to Brazil to better understand and witness in practice the implementation of the Brazilian social programmes,” she asserted.
She added that later on, a cooperation plan would be developed. “The idea is to outline the format of the cooperation, whose goal is to carry out a joint project,” she said. According to Carla, there is political willingness from both sides for promoting social cooperation. “The framework provided by the Summit of Arab-South American Countries (Aspa) encourages the coming to fruition of cooperation and exchange of experiences in the social sphere, and this type of activity is the best way of seeing in practice the recommendations contained in the documents elaborated and adopted by the countries in the two regions,” she concluded.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
