A Presentation by Michelle Morais de Sa e Silva, Coordinator-General of International Cooperation at the Secretariat for Human Rights at International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), on 20 April 2012

1. Brazilian
South-South Cooperation
on Human Rights:
a new perspective
Michelle Morais de Sá e Silva
Coordinator-General for International
Cooperation
Secretariat for Human Rights

2. Personal background on the topic
 Research on Brazilian South-South
Cooperation on Adult Literacy:
 Brazil – Mozambique
 Brazil – Angola
 Research on cash transfer programs and
their international diffusion
 Practitioner on South-South cooperation
projects

3. International cooperation at the
Secretariat for Human Rights
 Coordination-General for International
Cooperation vs. International office at the
Minister’s Cabinet (“assessoria
internacional)
 A team specialized in international
cooperation, both multilateral and bilateral

4. How we define South-South
Cooperation
 Technical cooperation among countries of the
South, aimed at the exchange of expertise, best
practices, and also at the development of joint
dialogue on how to face common problems (“Sá
e Silva, 2012”).
 However, Brazilian technical cooperation has not
been much dedicated to the reciprocity aspects
that should be inherent to South-South
cooperation. Its practice has been concentrated
on the “export” of Brazilian public policies that
have been labeled as best practices.
 At the Secretariat for Human Rights, new
projects have already incorporated this new
perspective. They have included the need for, at
the project’s preliminary stage, getting to better
know the partner country in order to work for the
strengthening of its institutions.

5. What does a new perspective
mean?
 New cooperation principles on Human Rights:
 Non-selectivity
 Absence of conditionalities
 Respect for self determination
 Non-instrumentalization of human rights
 The promotion and defense of human rights as
the main objective
 Human rights are cross-cutting to every
cooperation project

6. What does a new perspective
mean?
 New cooperation focus:
 Focus on the strengthening of institutions and
processes, rather than on the export of models
 Example: Cooperation with Guinea Bissau
towards the strengthening of its Human Rights
Commission

7. What does a new perspective
mean?
 Introduction of alternatives in project
implementation:
 Bearing in mind the Secretariat’s small teams,
 Bearing in mind how time-consuming and
energy-consuming South-South cooperation
projects are and should be,
 New partners are necessary to successfully
implement projects in a timely manner (i.e. civil
society organizations, scholars and
consultants)

8. Current projects
 Guinea Bissau: Strengthening of the Human
Rights Commission;
 Guinea Bissau: Right to basic documentation
(birth certificates);
 Cape Verde: strengthening of the Human Rights
Commission and Children’s Rights Policies;
 Colombia: Promotion and protection of gays
rights
 Colombia, El Salvador and Togo: Combating sex
abuse of children and adolescentes
 Haiti: Training government agents, civil society
and media towards the strengthening of policies
for persons with disabilities.