WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Governments of the United States and Chile today expanded their trilateral cooperation partnership to promote economic, institutional, and social development in the Caribbean. The Declaration of Intent was signed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Chilean Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz.

The United States, through the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID), and Chile, through the Chilean International Cooperation Agency (AGCI), will commence with activities in Haiti, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic where we will:

• Train Haitian government officials to manage and review of publicly-funded programs, which will help ensure efficient use of resources.
• Partner with the Jamaican Government and local non-governmental organizations to promote good governance practices.
• Work to reduce gender-based violence in Jamaica, particularly with young women and disadvantaged youth.
• Increase job training for at-risk youth in the Dominican Republic, who are susceptible to drug-related crime and violence. We will also help the Government of the Dominican Republic build its capacity to gather and analyze public data on youth to inform public policies and programming.

"By working collaboratively, we leverage one another’s diverse knowledge, capacities, and perspectives to help Caribbean countries prosper,” said Mark Feierstein, USAID’s Associate Administrator. “As we’ve seen over the past few years of this partnership, we achieve better results when we benefit from the lessons learned by countries like Chile.” 

The projects in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica will be part of President Obama’s Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), in which the United States works with Caribbean nations to reduce illicit trafficking, increase public safety and security, and promote social justice.

USAID and AGCI have worked together in Central and South America since 2011. Examples of the successful trilateral partnership include: improving food safety standards for exportation in Paraguay, Guatemala, and Honduras; and increasing access to credit for small farmers in El Salvador.