ABSTRACT
This chapter helps the reader to understand the broad contours of Brazil's provision of technical cooperation and the gains sought from choosing to provide technical cooperation with no-strings-attached. It presents Brazil's path in becoming a 'donor' from its very early steps to the post-2000s and current contours. The chapter analyses the three factors informing the foreign policy decision to provide technical cooperation with no conditionalities or commercial ties: the role of ideas and principles; domestic institutional framework, notably the Constitution, the presidency, and Itamaraty; and a desire to set/improve Brazil's position in the international system. Brazilian technical cooperation in this early phase would serve to demonstrate Brazil's technological capacities, without the need of great financial commitment. But more importantly, it would be used to maximize opportunities to increase exports and the entry hard currency. The 'emergence' of Brazil as a provider of development assistance in the 2000s did not occur in a vacuum.
