IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias and the assistant director general for Latin America for the Swedish International Development Agency, Eivor Halkjaer, signed an agreement in September under which Sweden pledges an initial donation of 8 million kronor for the fund. The new "Swedish Technical Cooperation Fund for Governance, State Reform, and Civil Society" will be used to finance consulting services for project identification, preparation, and evaluation; technical assistance for the development of new legislation; and the organization of consensus-building activities, such as conferences, seminars and workshops.

Additional activities that may be financed are design and implementation of pilot projects, training of human resources, and diagnostic studies of current policies.

Other Swedish trust funds administered by the IDB provide resources for microenterprise and small business, and other activities. Sweden authorized 1.6 million kronor earlier this year to assist a campaign to reduce and prevent domestic violence in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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The Portuguese Government signed an agreement with the IDB to establish a fund with up to $1.8 million in resources. The fund will finance consulting services for environmental and feasibility studies related to development projects in Latin America and the Caribbean, along with project preparation, implementation and evaluation activities. Seventy percent of the funds will be earmarked for Portuguese-owned consulting firms and the remainder will be available to the project host country.