Governance and Cross-border Cooperation Policies: the Case of Brazil-Uruguay

This paper deals with the evolution of New Agenda for Cooperation and Cross-border Development (NACCD), being implemented by the Uruguayan and Brazilian governments, since 2002. This program refers to a wide set of public policies designed to improve life quality of cross-border citizens and includes a wide range of international agreements and public projects (more than 100) from 2002 to 2013. The analysis specially refers to the following topics. Firstly, the article assesses the program outcomes by describing main social and demographical cross-border features. Secondly, it focuses on agreements features and public projects that have already been included in the public agenda. For this purpose a database has been designed to track agreements and projects during this period. Thirdly, the document analyses the NACCD institutional system and specifically focuses on the influence of intergovernmental relationships on cross-border public policies multi-level governance between both States, particularly emphasizing the Brazilian case. At last, some conclusions are drowned, as well as several critical factors are specified in order to improve public policies and projects involved in this cross-border program.