In June of this year, the Brazil, Uruguay and Germany Trilateral Financial Cooperation Project started being implemented - supported by German bank KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau) - which will finance improvements in health facilities of Uruguayan cities with less than 5000 inhabitants, located in the border regions between the two Latin American countries. The main goal is to strengthen the basic and epidemiological surveillance attention - focusing on HIV/AIDS. The project is supported by Fiotec, in partnership with the Centre for International Relations in Health of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Cris/Fiocruz).
The cooperation agreement was executed in November 2013 in the presence of the then Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha. In April of this year, GITEC Consult GmbH was awarded the contract, which will support institutions in planning and implementing the activities, including construction and improvement of the infrastructure of health centers and polyclinics, procurement of equipment, workshops for training in health to strengthen the network of services in the border region, among others.
Jörg Heukelbach, representative of GITEC, was in Fiotec’s headquarters in April to formalize the contract. Financial cooperation is a complement of the implanted technical cooperation from a partnership between the ministries of health of Brazil and Uruguay, the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) and the German Government Cooperation Agency (GIZ).
Performance of Fiotec
The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) will be responsible for the technical support of the implementation of the project and the participation in coordinating the program. Fiotec will be responsible for financial management, procurement of equipment and consulting services, bidding processes and contracts, accounting, preparation of technical and financial reports and final evaluation of the trilateral program. The actions contemplated in the project will be financed by the German financial contribution, with corresponding entries from Brazil and Uruguay.
