Costa Rica
Costa Rica has a dual role in development co-operation, as a provider and a beneficiary. Costa Rica provides development co-operation only in the form of technical co-operation through bilateral and regional initiatives of triangular and South-South co-operation. For instance, Spain has a triangular co-operation fund to support Costa Rica in its triangular co-operation projects with other Central American and Caribbean countries (e.g. El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras) in areas such as sustainable development, social cohesion, competitiveness and production, and participative democracy. Costa Rica also participates in projects of Germany’s Regional Fund for Triangular Co-operation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Furthermore, Costa Rica is working on developing decentralised co-operation initiatives in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
In its 2014-22 international co-operation policy, Costa Rica stresses the importance of solidarity and new co-operation modalities. The policy states that “concerning the recent tendencies in international co-operation, Costa Rica has developed capacities in areas such as health, education, sustainable development and environmental protection. Among others, these constitute a co-operation offer with which Costa Rica aims to position itself in the international scene as a country that stands in solidarity with others and promotes new co-operation modalities”.
Costa Rica joined the OECD in May 2021. It regularly participates in the DAC Senior-level and High-Level Meetings and the LAC-DAC Dialogue on Development Co-operation.
According to OECD estimates, in 2019, Costa Rica’s contributions to multilateral organisations totalled USD 4 million, up from USD 2.14 million in 2018. These contributions were channelled through the United Nations system and the World Bank Group. Bilateral co-operation figures of Costa Rica are based on its reporting to Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) on cross-border resources to developing countries.
In 2019, Costa Rica indicated that it had channelled in-kind (non-financial) co-operation of more than USD 6.2 million. This includes triangular, South-South, bilateral and multilateral co-operation and represents a considerable increase from 2018 efforts when it provided USD 4.5 million.
https://oe.cd/il/dev-coop-costa-rica
The OECD estimates the volume of Costa Rica’s funding based on official government reports, complemented by contributions to UN agencies (excluding local resources) and web-based research (mainly on contributions to multilateral organisations) in an internationally comparable manner.