Joint press statement by Dominica’s Foreign Affairs Minister and Executive Director of Chilean Agency for International Cooperation for Development

Joint press statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs of Dominica, Kenneth Darroux and Ambassador Cristian Jara, Executive Director of The Chilean Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AGCID) on Bilateral Cooperation Actions.

October 11, 2021; Roseau, DOMINICA; The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Dominica, Hon. Kenneth Darroux, and the Executive Director of the Chilean Agency of International Cooperation for Development, Ambassador Cristián Jara, met to exchange views on ways to strengthen cooperation between Dominica and Chile. This exchange commemorated 30 years of strong bilateral partnership between both countries established on the boundaries of mutual interest and respect.

The meeting agreed to advancing cooperation in four main areas in the coming months: support for capacity building and knowledge transfer in the area of resilience and the management of natural disasters and technical cooperation in Agriculture. The Government of Chile will also introduce the program ‘Escuelas Chile’ to a Dominican school and committed to extending support to improve the teaching of Spanish at the tertiary level.

These actions form part of a short and medium term cooperation action plan between both countries.

Reflecting on common values shared by Chile and Dominica over the past 30 years,  both  countries highlighted the importance of international cooperation as a fundamental tool for citizens’ development in an  increasingly challenging global environment and agreed that future collaboration must be based on reaching an effective, innovative and concrete plan which would translate into mutual benefits.

For both States, it is essential to build a plan based on the common commitment of reinforcing actions as  outlined under SDG16+ towards achieving the 2030 Agenda, which will deliver effective actions in cooperation for development and promote new initiatives and efforts.

This new bilateral agenda in international cooperation is expected  to contribute to a more effective and rapid dialogue in cooperation, by easing the exchanges of information between competent authorities. In this context, both countries expressed their willingness to enhance cooperation in promoting best practices bilaterally and considering, as well, trilateral and multilateral level opportunities.

In this respect, Minister Darroux also welcomed the new Bilateral Agenda of the Chilean Cooperation Agency as recently defined and its emphasis on issues of mutual interests such as climate change and disaster mitigation.

Both countries are committed to advancing and further strengthening this dialogue to promote innovation, work towards a collaborative view on common challenges and further facilitate mutual experience flows, including the use of all available cooperation instruments to obtain shared benefits and opportunities that this new cooperation approach can provide for each other.

The Government of Dominica and the Government of Chile  established diplomatic relations in October, 1991.