BELLA II: Building the Europe Link to Latin America and the Caribbean
BELLA II receives funding from the European Union through the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI), under agreement number 438-964 with DG-INTPA, signed in December 2022. The EC contribution for the 48 months in which the project will be executed, is of 13 million euros (€13,000,000); RedCLARA, the executing and coordinating institution, will seek to complement -through the alliance with governments, private companies, banks and others- this amount with one of at least €15MM to carry out the plans and objectives of BELLA II.
The general objective of BELLA II is:
To strengthen and expand the Latin American and Caribbean digital ecosystem, enabler of relationships and exchanges between Latin American and European enterprises, research centres, educational institutions, and academic networks to contribute to achieving the region's strategic goals focused on strengthening education, science, technology, and innovation.
The specific objectives of the BELLA II Project are:
- To design, build and operate the digital infrastructure capable of guaranteeing adequate connectivity of Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras with the rest of BELLA's infrastructure and, particularly, with the submarine cable connecting Europe with Latin America since 2021. Also, the project will allow the possibility of extending further, depending on the feasibility analysis, prioritization of the community and availability of economic resources to some of the following countries: Caribbean nations, Mexico, Belize, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
- To increase the adoption and use of digital transformation technologies to develop digital research and education solutions.
- To intensify the cooperative relationships with European research and educational digital ecosystems to promote knowledge sharing, access to good practices, and the creation of dialogue spaces needed to design, formulate, and execute innovative research and education projects.
- To engage with European initiatives such as the EU-LAC Digital Alliance to develop capabilities in applying digital transformation technologies to foster innovation in the public and private sectors.
