INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION IN THE AMAZON¹

A Cooperação Internacional na Amazônia

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates International Development Cooperation projects carried out in the Brazilian Amazon in recent decades, analyzing also the involved agents and resources. To achieve this, we referred to information published by the Brazilian Agency of Cooperation and international funding providers. The results indicate the formation of a complex ecosystem comprising interrelated and independent actors.

KEYWORDS:
Amazon; international development cooperation; environment; sustainable development

RESUMO

Este artigo apresenta um levantamento de projetos de Cooperação Internacional para o Desenvolvimento realizados na Amazônia brasileira nas últimas décadas, incluindo agentes envolvidos e recursos mobilizados. Para tanto, foram consultadas informações disponibilizadas pela Agência Brasileira de Cooperação e pelos provedores internacionais. Os resultados apontam para um ecossistema complexo formado por atores interligados e interdependentes.

PALAVRAS‑CHAVE:
Amazônia; cooperação internacional para o desenvolvimento; meio ambiente; desenvolvimento sustentável

INTRODUCTION

International Development Cooperation (IDC) has played an important role in Brazil’s development strategy and foreign policy. Environmental concerns, in particular, have become increasingly central in international cooperation partnerships, due to the growing importance of the sustainable development agenda. The Amazon region has been a focal point of these discussions, and even the international image of the country has been associated with this region. In recent decades, it has been the focus of a series of international cooperation projects from various sources, including bilateral donors, international organizations like the United Nations, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and regional development banks, as well as several non-governmental entities.

We understand International Development Cooperation as the actions and activities undertaken by public and private actors to internationally promote socio-economic development. The concept usually encompasses terms such as “foreign aid”, “Official Development Aid (ODA)”, “North-South Cooperation (NSC)”, and “South-South Cooperation (SSC)”, among others. Its most common manifestations involve donations, subsidized credits, debt relief, as well as the transfer of technical expertise and knowledge (Apolinário Júnior, 2019, 2023).²

In recent years, several institutional mechanisms emerged within the realm of International Development Cooperation. Notable among these are the Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest (RF-PPG7), the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (Arpa), the Brazilian Climate Fund, the Amazon Fund, and the Amazon Bioeconomy Fund, alongside various other initiatives. These mechanisms comprise both international and national programs and funds, each with specific institutional and governance structures. Within these frameworks, numerous subprojects have been developed with the participation of a constellation of several IDC actors. For example, Arpa, which was launched by the Brazilian government and coordinated by Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment, with financial management and execution handled by Brazilian Fund for Biodiversity (FUNBIO), receives funding from both Brazilian and international sources. These include the German Government via the German Development Bank, the World Bank through the Global Environment Facility, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Anglo-American, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) (FUNBIO, 2022).

Many of these environmental programs and commitments were established or reinforced at a time when the idea that limiting deforestation could harm Brazilian economic growth was overcome, making the onset of a period with more ambitious goals in the fight against climate change (Abramovay, 2010). These goals led to a constant reduction in deforestation in the Amazon from 2004 to 2012, a period marked by the implementation of federal laws like the Action Plan to Prevent and Control Legal Amazonian Deforestation (Neves; Whately, 2016). International cooperation also played an important role with the creation of the Amazon Fund in 2008 and the implementation of the Arpa in 2002, whose second phase began in 2009. Table 1 presents some of the main International Development Cooperation mechanisms in the Amazon, as well as their institutional structures and functional mechanisms.

TABLE I
IDC Iniciatives in the Brazilian Amazon

Program	Scope	Actors involved	Objectives
Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT)/Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) (1978-present)(a)	Promote the development of the Amazon region among the eight member countries, in a harmonious manner, with egalitarian results while preserving the region's environment and natural resources.	Eight Amazonian countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela), high-level diplomatic representatives of the member states, and national partnership institutions.	Promote the development of the Amazon region in a harmonious manner, with egalitarian results, while preserving the region's environment and natural resources, strengthening regional cooperation in the fields of scientific research and technoloogy to promote economic and social development.
Association of Amazonian Universities (UNAMAZ) (1987-present)	Critical and multidisciplinary analysis of the Amazonian reality to offer alternatives to the region's problems. It has served as the input for the creation of the Amazonian Information System.	Higher education and research institutions.	Catalyzation of the actions of higher education and research institutions for a critical and multidisciplinary critique of the Amazon reality to offer alternatives to the region's problems.
Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest (RF-PPG7) (1992-2009)	Reducing deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest, preserving biodiversity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting sustainable development and international cooperation.	The Brazilian government, the international community (G7 nations, the European Union, and the Low Countries), the World Bank, the Ministry of the Environment, donors, NGOs, and the International Advisory Group (IAG).	Actions along five main axes: experimentation and demonstration; conservation of protected areas, strengthening of institutions; science and technology for sustainable development; and the dissemination of knowledge.
Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (Arpa) (2002-present)	Permanent conservation and protection of 232,000 square miles or 15% of the Brazilian Amazon, through the creation, expansion and strengthening of conservation units.	The Brazilian federal government, state governmental bodies, private institutions, civil society, the management bodies of the program (ICMBio for the federal conservation units, state governmental bodies for the state conservation units) and various donors such as the World Bank and the WWF, among others.	Conserve and protect the Brazilian Amazon, ensuring that there are financial resources to manage and maintain the conservation units, promoting sustainable development, and gradually increasing the resources provided by governments to the Arpa.
Amazon Fund (2008-present)(b)	Fundraising for non-reimbursable investments for the prevention, monitoring, and fight against deforestation, promoting the conservation and sustainable use of the Legal Amazon, in addition to supporting the development of systems to monitor and control deforestation in Brazil and other tropical countries.	The Norwegian and German governments, Petrobras, National Bank of Economic and Social Development (BNDES), members of the federal and state governments, civil society, and specialists.	Decrease deforestation, contributing to the reduction of greehouse gases, and ecouraging Brazil and other developing countries in the Amazon region to adopt measures to decrease deforestation.
Amazon Bioeconomy Fund (2021-present)	Support for projects and initiatives to create sustainable development models based on the human capital, the natural resources, and the cultural heritage of the countries of the Amazon. The fund is focused on four main priorities: the bioeconomy, the sustainable development of agriculture, livestock and forests, human capital, and sustainable infrastructure.	Amazonian counstries, the Inter-America Development Bank (IDB), and the ACTO.	Attract more sustainable investments in the Amazon region and promote a greater level of coordination on all levels, seeking economic development, social benefits, and promoting the valorization of the natural capital of the Amazon.

• Table elaborated by the authors. Source: Aragón (2008); Arpa (2017); Castro and Silva (2017); Fundo Amazônia (2021); Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) (1978); and the World Bank (2008). Notes: (a) The ACTO was signe in 1978, and in 1995 the member states decided to strengthen their relations with the creation of the ACTO. (b) In 2019, the main donors Germany and Norway suspended their financial support of the fund.

However, during the Bolsonaro administration, IDC was pushed to the background of the Brazilian environmental agenda. An example of this was the freezing of two mechanisms that financed public policies in this field through institutional alterations in their managing and technical committees: the Amazon Fund and the Brazilian Climate Fund. The administration terminated all instances of governance created by decrees or lower norms via Decree No. 9,759/2019, thereby dissolving the Steering and Technical Committees of the Amazon Fund, which were instituted in BNDES in 2008. Since these mechanisms, including those related to governance, were contractual requirements, the violation of this clause led to the freezing of these funds as of 2019. In the case of the Climate Fund, this halt was scrutinized by the Supreme Court. The Direct Action of Unconstitutionality for Omission (ADO) No. 60,³ filed in 2020 by the opposition parties psb and psol, was converted by Justice Luís Roberto Barroso into the Direct Action for the Breach of Fundamental Constitutional Precept (ADPF) No. 708,⁴ which was ruled in favor in July 2022 and published in September. A similar action regarding the Amazon Fund - ADO No. 59⁵ - is currently pending before the court (Tanaloa, 2022).

Given the impact of the Bolsonaro administration on Brazil’s environment and the international perception of the country, there has been an increasing discussion about new investment flows involving stakeholders beyond the national border. Examples of such initiatives emerged during COP26, including the Amazon +10 Fund, a joint initiative of the states of Acre, Amapa, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, São Paulo, and Tocantins that aimed at advancing science, innovation, and technology in the Amazon, and was supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fapesp), international organizations, and companies (Fapesp, 2021).

At COP26, a second agreement was signed, on the sidelines of the federal government, between seven states of the Interstate Consortium of the Legal Amazon and the LEAF Coalition. The coalition, formed by Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States and 19 companies (including Amazon, SAP, and Nestlé), announced the mobilization of one billion dollars for the countries and states committed to protecting the tropical and subtropical forests and reducing deforestation (Emergent, 2021). Additionally, in COP26 the states of the consortium formalized their interest in participating in the initiative to have access to this fund (Chade, 2021). These initiatives illustrate how international cooperation can be leveraged to attract resources for the region.

Thus, we may note how IDC has proved to be an important and necessary tool for addressing environmental challenges globally, particularly in Brazil. In light of this context, this study aims to conduct a comprehensive and systematic investigation into the current instruments of international cooperation, encompassing agreements, participating entities, and mobilized resources. Methodologically, our approach involves an innovative mapping of IDC projects⁶ in the Brazilian Amazon, based on information available on donors’ and partners’ web portals between May and December 2022. This criterion was chosen in order to enhance the transparency of our research methodology. Moreover, our research was complemented by data provided by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) in July 2022, obtained through a request under the Access to Information Law (Protocol No. 09002.001271/2022-51). Additionally, we reached out to all relevant stakeholder concomitantly, via email and/or telephone. This outreach was based on the existence of international cooperation projects completed in recent decades or their partial execution by these agents in the Brazilian Amazon region, or in Brazil, in cases where no specific region was referred to explicitly.⁷

To systematize the data,⁸ we categorized the primary actors involved in IDC in the Brazilian Amazon region into three groups: countries, multilateral organizations, and private actors. With regard to countries, despite our attempt to distinguish between donors to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (DAC/OECD) and non-DAC providers of cooperation, we could only find information about IDC projects from DAC donors. Multilateral organizations, meanwhile, were divided into four subgroups: entities within the un system, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), Vertical Funds, and organizations with specific mandates. Lastly, private actors were classified into two categories: Non-Governmental Actors (NGOs) and private foundations. This approach resulted in the mapping of a total of 152 entities, which encompass 40 countries, 36 multilateral organizations, 51 private foundations, and 25 NGOs.

This article is structured as follows: the first section maps the actions of countries and national development banks providing international cooperation; it is followed by the actions of multilateral organizations in the region, categorized into agencies within the UN system, MDBs, Vertical Funds, and organizations with specific mandates; next, we discuss the actions of private actors in the region, classifying them into private philanthropic foundations and NGOs; the subsequent section presents a quantitative analysis of the flow of international cooperation to this region over recent decades; and, finally, we will present our considerations and conclusions.

COUNTRIES PROVIDING IDC TO THE AMAZON

Historically one of the key players in the field of international cooperation have been state actors, operating through their respective cooperation agencies. In general, these actors offer both technical and financial cooperation. In Brazil, technical cooperation from foreign governments is legally grounded in Basic Technical Cooperation Agreements. These agreements establish the cooperation objectives, instruments, the type of beneficiary organizations, and the responsibilities of the involved parties, as well as other aspects necessary for the realization of cooperation activities (ABC, 2020).

Thus, to conduct this study, we initially examined the basic agreements of bilateral cooperation signed between Brazil and other countries with which it has engaged in technical cooperation initiatives in recent decades. We utilized the list of actors operating in Brazil provided by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency’s website (ABC, 2022a) as a foundation. Based on this list of 40 countries, we investigated cooperation projects focused on the Brazilian Amazon by visiting the cooperation agencies’ websites of these countries. We first searched the web portals or the projects base of these organizations using keywords - from more specific to more general ones. At the same time, we emailed these agencies, inquiring about current international cooperation projects, or those completed since 2000, related to the Brazilian Amazon or Brazil in cases where the focus was less specific. Additionally, this research was completed using information from the Brazilian Cooperation Agency’s database, accessed through a request made under the Access to Information Law. Notably, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Norway, and Austria were among the most significant countries in this context.

To investigate the financial cooperation extended to the region by these countries through their national development banks and other public institutions, our initial step involved researching financial institutions potentially operating in the region. We consulted 40 financial institutions, among which we found 20 organizations without projects or operations in the region, and, in 19 cases, it was not possible to confirm this information. The German Development Bank kfw was the sole institution for which we obtained information regarding project financing in the region. Table 2 provides a summary of this information.

TABLE 2
Countries Operating in the Brazilian Amazon through Cooperation

Organization	Ongoing Projects	Total Projects
Austria: Austrian Development Agency (ADA)	1	11 (since 2001)
Canada: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)	-	2 (since 2007)
France: French DevelopmentAgency (AFD)	1	10 (since 1990)
Germany: German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and German Development Bank (KfW)	7	25 (since 1994)
Italy: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI)	-	4 (since 2004)
Japan: Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)	3	11 (since 2009)
Norway: Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)	9	113 (since 1993)
United Kingdom: Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs	2	36 (since 2010)
United States: United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of State, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior, Trade and Development Agency, and Inter American Foundation	8	56 (since 1999)

• Table elaborated by the aurhors. Source: lnternational Oevelopment Cooperation in rhe Amazon Database, 2023.

MULTILATERAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE AMAZON

The multilateral system has gained increasing relevance in the IDC field, as a growing portion of the financial flows for this purpose has been channeled through multilateral organizations (OECD, 2020). Today, following the four categories proposed by the OECD, the multilateral development system can be understood as comprising: UN system organizations, including affiliated funds, programs, and organizations; MDBs, encompassing global entities such as the World Bank Group and the New Development Bank (NDB), as well as regional or sub-regional institutions, like the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); vertical funds, which are financial mechanisms that combine resources from the public and private (philanthropic) sectors to address specific issues regarding international development; and, finally, organizations with specialized mandates and governance structures that do not fit into any of the above three categories, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (OECD, 2020).

For this study, we have mapped the actions of UN agencies, MDBs, vertical funds, and organizations without specific mandates in the Brazilian Amazon. Then, we utilized the list of actors operating in Brazil provided by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency’s website (ABC, 2022b) as a foundation. We analyzed 36 organizations, 12 of which had active projects in the region. Among these, four were MDBs, three were UN organizations, two were vertical funds, and two were organizations without specialized mandates.

In this investigation, we will focus on development finance banks such as the World Bank, the IDB, the NDB, vertical funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF), and the Global Environmental Fund (GEF), as well as international agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the Structural Convergence Fund for Mercosur (FOCEM), the Organization of American States (OAS), and the World Health Organization (WHO) (Table 3).

TABLE 3
International Organization Projects in the Amazon

Organization	Ongoing Projects	Total Projects
Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (OTCA)	6	12 (since 2011)
Development Bank of Latin America (CAF)	(No indication of project status)	8 (since 1997)
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)	3	3 (since 2021)
Global Environmental Fund (GEF)	5	10 (since 2001)
Green Climate Fund (GCF)	2	2 (since 2019)
Inter American Development Bank (IDB)	6	33 (since 1979)
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)	1	1 (since 2022)
International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO)	1	31
New Development Bank (NOB)	3	3 (since 2018)
Structural Convergence Fund for MERCOSUR (FOCEM)	1	1 (2007)
World Bank Group (WBG)	4	28 (since 2001)
World Health Organization (WHO)/ Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)	8	22 (since 2010)

• Table elaborated by the authors. Source: International Development Cooperation in the Amazon Database, 2023.

PRIVATE ACTORS AND THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

The international community has increasingly recognized the pivotal role of the private sector in sustainable development, acknowledging the actors within this sector as wellsprings of innovation, experience, and funding that can be harnessed to address developmental challenges. Within the realm of IDC, a growing share of international humanitarian aid and development funding has been sourced from non-governmental entities. Although terms like “private actors” and “non-state actors” are commonly employed in specialized literature to refer to these entities, this classification often encompass agents with a wide array of characteristics. Such a broad characterization muddles the understanding of the private sector’s roles in development, grouping together organizations with vastly divergent mandates, including corporations, religious groups, foundations, and various non-governmental organizations (Di Bella et al., 2013).

In the literature and within the IDC community, references to the involvement of private actors in this domain typically pertain to foundations and international NGOs, rather than the for-profit private sector. In this sense, it should be noted that independent foundations have more in common with international NGOs than with companies specifically (Felsen; Besada, 2013). For the purposes of this study, our analysis is limited to the initiatives undertaken by major foundations and international NGOs. Thus, we have examined international cooperation projects undertaken by these two categories of actors in the Brazilian Amazon in recent decades.

With regard to private foundations, these organizations are usually funded by one or more donations, exclude public resources, and exist formally established to achieve charitable goals, making them eligible for distinct tax benefits. This definition covers various organizational categories, such as eponymous private foundations, non-eponymous private foundations, charitable funds, limited liability companies, and donor funds (Clarke, 2019). Foundations operating in the IDC field constitute a diverse group, although a small number of major foundations with strong global presence dominate the financing landscape (Lundsgaarde, 2013). In this study, we have sought to simplify the conceptual discussion by using the term “international foundations” without making more specific distinctions. To ensure methodological rigor and conceptual precision, we first researched foundations listed on the OECD website under the label “Private Philanthropic Foundations”. We then examined 41 foundations registered on this particular portal. Additionally, to complement our analysis, we also explored projects undertaken by prominent foundations not listed in the OECD’s web portal. In this manner, we analyzed 10 more foundations.

Among these actors, we can cite foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the ikea Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (Table 4).

TABLE 4
Private Philanthropic Foundations

Organization	Ongoing Projects	Total Projects
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	-	3 (since 2011)
Children's Investment Fund Foundation	1	2 (since 2018)
David and Lucile Packard Foundation	1	1 (since 2021)
Ford Foundation	10	143 (since 2006)
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation	-	17 (since 2002)
IKEA Foundation	-	1 (since 2019)
Open Society Foundation	-	7 (since 2019)
Rockefeller Foundation	-	1 (since 2020)
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation	-	13 (since 2000)

• Table elaborated by the authors. Source: International Development Cooperation in the Amazon Database, 2023.

The term Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) applies to a wide range of organizations. There is no universally agreed-upon definition of the concept, leading to different interpretations based on the context (Willetts, 2013). Nevertheless, certain common characteristics are generally associated with NGOs. Typically, they are expected to operate independently of governments and are usually non-profit entities (Desai, 2014). However, it’s worth noting that although NGOs are not government-run and operate on a non-profit basis, some NGOs receive significant funding from governments, while others pursue profit-making activities to finance their operations (Lewis, 2010).

For the purposes of this study, considering the extensive range of organizations falling under this category, we have focused on analyzing internationally prominent NGOs which are more relevant internationally and are focused on the environmental conservation. Within this scope, we examined 25 NGOs that meet one of these two criteria. Notable organizations in this group include Conservation International, wwf, the Rainforest Alliance, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (Table 5).

TABLE 5
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Organization	Ongoing Projects	Total Projects
Christian Aid	-	1 (since 2019)
Conservation International	2	4 (since 2018)
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)	2	2 (since 2016)
Rainforest Alliance	1	1 (since 2021)
WWF	-	4 (since 2002)

• Table elaborated by the authors. Source: International Development Cooperation in the Amazon Database, 2023.

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

Chart 1 presents the number of IDC projects in the Brazilian Amazon over the past few decades. We identified 643⁹ IDC projects in the region undertaken by various entities. This overview demonstrates how international cooperation has increasingly become a robust tool for the region’s development. However, despite the remarkable growth in the number of projects since 2000, it should be noted that this growth can also be partially explained by the greater availability of information on projects from a wide array of international actors during this period.¹⁰ Additionally, we observe a trend towards an increasing number of new projects in recent years.

CHART 1
International Development Cooperation Projects in the Brazilian Amazon

Chart 2 presents the total number of IDC projects completed or currently underway in each category of actor, as well as the total number of ongoing projects in the region for each type of actor. For this chart, we did not consider projects lacking information about their completion and those concluded in 2022. Thus, there are 87 ongoing projects listed in various databases for international actors. It is noteworthy that, historically, countries providing IDC have been the primary contributors to IDC in the region, despite the relevance of other agents, such as private foundations, international organizations, and NGOs.

CHART 2
Total of International Development Cooperation Projects and Total of Ongoing Development Projects per Actor in the Brazilian Amazon

Table 6 presents information about the dollar expenditures by IDC providers in the Brazilian Amazon in recent decades. To prevent double counting of project data for international donors across various databases, only the values reported by each provider were considered. However, it is essential to approach this data with caution. First of all, there is a significant gap in information regarding IDC investments in the region, as a considerable portion of the projects lacks cost details. Moreover, some projects have a national scope, making it impossible to isolate specific costs for the Amazon region. Out of a total of 643 researched projects, 562 included budgetary cost information. The average cost per project, considering only these projects, was us$ 13.8 million. However, there is great dispersion within this data. The least expensive project cost us$ 3,303,¹¹ while the most expensive one reached us$ 1.17 billion.¹² Table 6 presents the key descriptive statistics for this data.

TABLE 6
Descriptive statistics

Millions of Constant USS (2010)	N	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min.	Max.	Total
Country	233	9.82412	78.65037	0.0033035	1173.943	2289.02
International Organization	114	43.77475	72.44643	0.0360546	361.245	4990.32
Private Foundation	210	1.781352	14.52593	0.0074509	208.4205	364.08
NGO	5	23.32608	35.37633	0.5530116	84.25275	116.63
Total	562	13.82572	62.8243	0.0033035	1173.943	7770.06

• Table elaborared by the authors. Source: lnternational Development Cooperation in the Amazon Darabase, 2023.

Chart 3 illustrates the spending by IDC providers over time.¹³ Approximately us$ 7.8 billion has been allocated to IDC projects in the Brazilian Amazon over the past few decades by the various international actors in the sample.

CHART 3
Total IDC Spending on the Brazilian Amazon by International Actors

Chart 4 presents information about total IDC spending by actor type as well as ongoing spending on projects in the region. The research methodology for ongoing projects was the same used for Chart 2, with projects without information on their termination year and which terminated in 2022 not being considered. Thus, we identified approximately us$ 1.7 billion spent on current projects in the Brazilian Amazon region by various IDC actors.

CHART 4
Total Spending on International Development Cooperation by Actor Type Considering Total Projects and Ongoing Projects

In addition to the concern mentioned regarding Chart 3, another issue arises here. A significant portion of the values reported by specific actors, especially international organizations and NGOs, in fact, are executed by other international actors such as countries and private foundations. Consequently, it should be noted that these actors may have their values inflated due to these indirect contributions by other IDC providers. Moreover, little information was found concerning the financial cooperation provided by countries in this region, with the exception of Germany. Hence, the actions of international organizations and especially MDBs tend to be more prominent. Futhermore, these investments are usually more significant in financial terms than the technical cooperation projects reported by these countries and often take the form of loans.

Next, we will present IDC projects in the region divided by sectors. Methodologically, the sectors were categorized according to the labels employed by the institutions themselves. However, two issues surfaced. First, there was a significant challenge due to the multitude of categories in the sector classification, with more than 98 distinct ones identified for all the analyzed projects. Second, some organizations specified overly broad or vague sectors in the categorization of their projects.¹⁴

Considering these limitations, we chose to devise a unique sector classification based on project objectives, which resulted in a list of 18 sectors (Table 7). Each project was then assigned a primary sector along with other pertinent secondary sectors.¹⁵ It is important to note that some of the funding presented was not allocated to a specific project, but rather to “umbrella projects” such as the Amazon Fund. Additionally, certain funds were designated for institutional projects by NGOs or other organizations. In both cases, the categories were based on the overall objectives of these organizations and projects.¹⁶

TABLE 7
Description of the Sectors Utilized in the Analyses

Sector	Description
Biodiversity	Projects for the protection and conservation of biodiversity.
Education	Projects focused on the formal basic education system or general training programs.
Environmental Policy	Broader policies for environmental protection.
Fiscal Management	Projects for improving public fiscal management or the creation/improvement of fiscal mechanisms in general.
Forestry Development	Projects for the protection and conservation of forests and/or those that promote sustainable forest use.
Health	Projects that promote disease prevention, improve healthcare systems, and protect the overall physical well-being of individuais.
Indigenous Population	Projects whose direct beneficiaries are indigenous peoples.
Infrastructure	Projects focusing on creating/improving networks of structures and services in a specific region.
Justice Administration and Law Enforcement	Projects aimed at access to justice, law enforcement, or law creation.
Private Sector Development	Projects that seek to improve the business environment or directly support the private sector.
Renewable Energy	Projects for the implementation of renewable energy options.
Research	Projects that directly fund research in various fields, data collection, or technical analyses.
Risk and Disaster Management	Projects related to climate adaptation, management, handling, or response to risks and disasters.
Rural Development	Projects focusing on the agrarian sector, whether in agriculture or extractive practices.
Social Protection	Projects with a focus on promoting human rights and preventing vulnerabilities and risks among vulnerable populations.
Tourism	Projects aimed at promoting tourism.
Transport	Projects focusing on transportation, including public transportation projects (such as bus purchases) or infrastructure projects (such as highways and railways).
Water Management	Projects aiming to protect water bodies and sanitation projects.

• Table elaborated by the authors.

Thus, based on the aforementioned classification, Chart 5 presents the overall totals for IDC projects conducted in the Brazilian Amazon, categorized by sector, from the entire sample.

CHART 5
Total International Development Cooperation Projects by Sector

In Chart 5, it is possible to observe that the sectors “Forestry Development”, “Research”, and “Indigenous Population” stand out in terms of the number of projects undertaken, considering their objectives. However, it is crucial to note the significant overlap among these projects, as various topics are addressed within the same project.

Chart 6 presents the total invested by international actors in each sector based on the same sector classification. In this chart, it is possible to observe that the sectors “Environmental Policy” and “Transport”¹⁷ stand out in terms of spending by international actors. These results are as expected, considering that these sectors primarily involve infrastructure projects, which tend to attract substantial financial investments from MDBs.

CHART 6
Total International Development Cooperation Spending by Sector

Projects related to the “Indigenous Population” stand out due to their significant number, which may reflect the increasing importance of this area in the international cooperation landscape (Barroso-Hoffmann, 2005; 2009). The integration of indigenous affairs into the international cooperation agenda is also related to the growing efforts to mitigate global warming through sustainable development. These two issues, environmental and indigenous affairs, are inseparable (Montanari, 2011).

However, despite the large number of projects, the spending on this sector remains low when compared to other sectors. This raises a discussion about how cooperation has been instrumentalized for this purpose (Barroso-Hoffmann, 2005; 2009; Peres, 2003). The majority of these projects have budgets below us$ 1 million¹⁸ and consist of actions to institutionally strengthen indigenous associations, as well as their defense and representation in terms of human rights, and also include support for local celebrations.¹⁹

Chart 7 presents the total number of ongoing projects by sector. The methodology used for this chart is the same as that adopted for Charts 2 and 4, with projects without information about their termination years and those ending in 2022 not being considered.

CHART 7
Total Current International Development Cooperation Projects by Sector

Note that according to Chart 7, the sectors “Forestry Development”, “Environmental Policy”, and “Indigenous Population” have the greatest number of current projects, though the distribution is relatively homogeneous in relation to the other sectors.

Finally, Chart 8 presents IDC spending on current projects by sector.

CHART 8
Total IDC Spending on Current Projects by Sector

Again, the methodology is the same as that used in Charts 2, 4, and 7. In Chart 8, it is possible to observe how the sectors related to infrastructure projects have a greater weight due to the larger financial investments made by MDBs, such as the New Development Bank and the World Bank. Thus, the sectors “Renewable Energy”, “Forestry Development”, and “Transport” stand out compared to the others.

CONCLUSIONS

This study presents a survey of IDC projects in the Brazilian Amazon undertaken by various actors in recent decades. To conduct this survey, we searched for information in web portals of IDC providers and also made formal requests both to these actors and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency. The cooperation actors were divided into three groups: countries, multilateral organizations, and private actors.

In the first group, we researched information involving the actions of their cooperation agencies as well as their development banks. The research considered 40 countries, focusing especially on the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Norway, and Austria. The activity of the United States stands out due to its main foreign aid agency, u.s. Agency for International Development (USAID), but also other American entities, such as the Departments of State and Agriculture, and public foundations, including the Inter-American Foundation. In the case of the United Kingdom, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy stand out. Regarding Germany, much of its activity went through its cooperation agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), as well as its national development bank, KfW. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), also contributed to relevant projects in the region. France’s cooperation agency, Agence Française de Développement (AFD), stands out due to a number of projects devoted to indigenous peoples. With regard to Norway, its cooperation agency, NORAD, stands out due to the large number of projects in the region over the past few decades. Finally, Austria stands out due to Austrian Development Agency (ADA), as well as its focus on indigenous issues.

Concerning this group, there was a great lack of information about South-South Cooperation projects in the region. It was not possible to find information about the actions of developing countries in the region, particularly China. We searched for information through its cooperation agency - the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) - as well as its development banks, like the China Development Bank (CDB), the Export-Import Bank of China (CHEXIM), the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the China Construction Bank (CCB), the Agricultural Development Bank of China (ADBC), and the China-Latin America Cooperation Fund. In addition to seeking information on the websites of these organizations, we attempted to contact them via email, unsuccessfully.

In the realm of international organizations, 38 institutions were consulted, including UN agencies, MDBs, vertical funds, and organizations with specific mandates. Of these, 11 presented projects in the region, four of them being MDBs, three UN organizations, two vertical funds, and two organizations with specialized mandates. Within this group, the WHO and the ITTO stand out in terms of the number of projects conducted in the region within their respective domains. The Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank Group, the Development Bank of Latin America, and the Global Environmental Fund also stand out in terms of inter-sectoral projects.

With regard to private actors, we investigated 51 private foundations and 25 large international NGOs. Among the private foundations, we can mention the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Ford Foundation, the IKEA Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The Ford Foundation stands out among this group due to its long history of activity in the region and its large number of projects. However, the mapping of the actions of these actors is complex given that they usually provide their resources through donations and grants to other actors who execute these projects in the region. When it comes to international NGOs, of the 25 organizations consulted, we found information on 5 of them, namely Conservation International, Christian Aid, the IUCN, the Rainforest Alliance, and WWF.

In summary, based on this survey, we can state that new funds and fundraising methods for IDC have played a significant role in generating resources for the Amazon region in recent years. However, these initiatives are dependent on the actions of other stakeholders in this field, such as states, international organizations, and private actors, creating a complex ecosystem of interconnected and interdependent entities.

It should be noted that despite the rise of a great number of state and non-state actors in the realm of IDC in the Brazilian Amazon in recent years, most of the cooperation still stems from major IDC players, particularly traditional donors such as the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Norway.

There is still a substantial gap in terms of information about various actors in the region. In this regard, there has been a lack of systematic documentation of cooperation projects in the region, especially by the Brazilian government, a gap that served as the motivation for this study. It is worth noting that the DAC/OECD countries and international organizations are the entities that tend to present information in a more transparent manner regarding their activities in the region, although this information is not always presented in a standardized format. The primary challenge in conducting this study was locating information on South-South cooperation, especially from China, and the actions of private actors such as philanthropic foundations. Another difficulty arose in delineating spending by various providers of cooperation, as it was not always possible to find distinct monetary values for each project. Moreover, isolating national IDC spending specifically for the Amazon region posed an additional challenge, given that most of the cases lack this specific breakdown.

Therefore, this study underscores the necessity to standardize, centralize, and update the databases produced by the Brazilian government. This step is crucial to ensure that information about international community support for projects in the Amazon can be readily accessible to civil society and other stakeholders, such as development banks, development agencies, and philanthropic foundations, as well as other providers and donors.

In terms of the sectoral allocation of IDC in the region, it is noteworthy that most IDC projects in the Amazon region are not solely focused on forest protection or climate-related issues. They also address urban and rural concerns, health care, and economic development, among others.

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in IDC initiatives in the Amazon region, although various actors and organizations have been acting in Brazil for a much longer period. This surge in IDC gained momentum in the first decade of this century and has continued to grow over the past decade. This expansion underscores the crucial role played by IDC, not only for Brazil as a whole, but specifically for the Amazon region.

Future research endeavors can benefit from this study and delve deeper into the dynamics of the Amazonian IDC ecosystem. This further exploration could include examining governance structures within these projects and analyzing the actions of various kinds of actors through critical, situational, theoretical, and policy analyses.

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• 1
  The authors thank the Arapyaú Institute and the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo Research Advisory for funding this research.
• 2
  Classifying International Development Cooperation (IDC) activities in Brazil is a challenging task due to complexity of the concept and its implementation. In Brazil, two expressions are commonly used to describe the foreign aid the country receives: International Technical Cooperation and International Financial Cooperation. These terms are widely employed by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) (Campos, 2005). The former primarily involves the BrazilianCooperationAgency, while the latter is mainly overseen by the Ministry of Economics.
• 3
  Available at: <https://portal.stf.jus.br/processos/detalhe.asp?incidente=5930776>. Accessed on: Nov. 10, 2023.
• 4
  Available at: <https://portal.stf.jus.br/processos/detalhe.asp?incidente=5951856>. Accessed on: Nov. 10, 2023.
• 5
  Available at: <https://portal.stf.jus.br/processos/detalhe.asp?incidente=5930766>. Accessed on: Nov. 10, 2023.
• 6
  One of the primary challenges we encountered was determining the unit of analysis to standardize the information, considering the wide diversity among these initiatives, particularly in the case of “umbrella” projects. Hence, this study employs the term “project” to encompass various initiatives within the scope of IDC, including loans, donations, thematic projects, and technical support, among others.
• 7
  Due to the scarcity of information concerning older projects in the region, we requested details about projects executed, or preferably completed, after the year 2000. The following is an excerpt from our contact email: “[...] I would like to know if —(agency)— could provide information regarding the International Cooperation/Foreign Aid projects completed and in execution in Brazil (if there is no regional/geographical framefor the Amazon region) during the last decades (preferably after 2000) [...]”.
• 8
  Whenever possible, we attempted to consolidate the donations from a single actor into the same project. However, it was not always possible to isolate these separate initiatives. For instance, Norwegian contributions to the Amazon Fund were consolidated by filtering all financial inputs from that country with BNDES as a partner that mentioned the fund in its description. However, two projects were entitled “Technical support to the Amazon Fund” with BMZ as a partner, and “Assessment of a potential mechanism for support to the Amazon Fund” with Norconsult as a partner. Consequently,we chose to keepthese projects distinct, resulting in three separate entries for Norway as associated with the Amazon Fund. Another challenge involved delineating projects comprising multiple actors. Our priority was to prevent double counting of financial contributions. As a result, the projects with various partners appear more than once in the table 2. For example, the Amazon Fund appears as a project in the totals for both Norway and Germany. Similarly, the Arpa project listed under the GEF, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Linden Trust for Conservation, and the WWF.
• 9
  The Chart 1 accounts for 627 projects as it is built upon the year of start of each project. In that matter, it was not possible to find the complete information of 16 projects.
• 10
  It should be noted that not all the projects had information regarding their start and finish dates.
• 11
  The 2016 Project “Contribution to Kuarup Pirakuman Yawalapiti Celebration — BRA-16/008" by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).
• 12
  Norwegian contributions to the Amazon Fund.
• 13
  For the creation of this chart and the other analyses involving monetary values, the first year of each project was used to calculate the annual total value for each project. Furthermore, as the original values reported by the different actors were registered in different currencies, all values were initially converted to US dollars according to the respective data periods. Then, to account for artificial monetary fluctuations, the data was deflated by the us Consumer Price Index, with the base year set to 2010 (CPI-Index) (World Bank, 2023).
• 14
  For instance, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation categorized its project “Energy and Infrastructure Development in the Amazon” as “Transforming Development Financing”, thereby omitting the infrastructure and energy aspects of the investment. Another example is the categorization used by organizations in the United States, where both the “Partnerships with Private Sector in Biodiversity Conservation — Middle Jurua Protected Areas (PA) Project” and the “Promoting Well-Being of Indigenous People in Roraima” project were categorized in the “General Environmental Protection” sector.
• 15
  For example, the United Kingdom’s contribution to the study titled “Indigenous Peoples Responding to Covid-19 in Brazil: Social Arrangements in a Global Health Emergency” was classified under “Research”, with “Health” and “Indigenous Population” included as supplementary relevant sectors.
• 16
  For instance, NORAD’s support to the Rio Negro Federation of Indigenous Organizations (FORIN) was classified under the “Indigenous Population” sector.
• 17
  Among the projects categorized under the “Environmental Policy” sector, NORAD’s support for the Amazon Fund stands out, with investments of billions of dollars. In the “Transport” sector, noteworthy is NDB’s investment in the “Porto São Luís Project”, totaling US$ 300 million.
• 18
  The projects of greatest value represent a few million dollars such as the project “Indigenous Communities and Other Key Actors — PPP USAID/GOOGLE” financed by USAID.
• 19
  For instance, the project “Contribution to the Kuarup Pirakuman Yawalapiti Celebration”, financed by NORAD, which cost a little over US$ 3,000.

Assigned editor: Fernando Bee.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 Jan 2024
• Date of issue
  Sep-Dec 2023

History

• Received
  27 Apr 2023
• Accepted
  03 Oct 2023