Between autonomy and multilevel governance: environmental triangular cooperation in Latin America (2007-2023)

This article examines the evolution of environmental Triangular Cooperation (TC) in Latin America (2007–2023) as a political arena where regional autonomy and multilevel governance arrangements are negotiated. Building on a longitudinal systematization of SEGIB reports, the study identifies four priority areas—biodiversity, disaster management, waste management and climate change—and reveals patterns of institutional consolidation alongside geographic concentration of roles. The core argument is that TC has the potential to enhance relational autonomy among Latin American countries by enabling Southern partners to act as intermediators and providers of technical leadership. Yet this potential is constrained by persistent asymmetries in agenda-setting, financing, and benefit
distribution, as well as by an intra-regional hierarchy in which only a few states operate as first providers. Moreover, environmental TC connects local, national, regional and global arenas, consolidating itself as a relevant modality of multilevel governance, though its declared horizontal principles remain unevenly operationalized. The article concludes that environmental TC offers a strategic platform from which Latin America may project its ecological assets, knowledge and political agency, provided that regional coordination is strengthened, additional actors and scales are incorporated, and the normative content of sustainability is contested in the context of planetary crisis.

Keywords: Triangular Cooperation – relational autonomy, multilevel governance – South-South Cooperation – environment – Latin America.