3av was founded in 2021 by a group of experts in international cooperation and local development. With more than three decades combined of professional experience in over 20 countries where international cooperation has been present for years, their collective reflections on its impact have led them to attempt to rationalize a debate currently driven by purely emotional impulses.

In a globalized world that seems to be sidelining science as a fundamental strategic ally, 3av is commited on the challenge of contributing to establishing guidelines for progress based on empirical evidence and advancing development cooperation along more solid paths.

Multiple experiences in countries such as the Philippines, Haiti, El Salvador, Paraguay, Senegal, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, and Morocco allow us to view the impact of development cooperation with undeniably critical eyes, but with the ambition of contributing to its necessary consolidation as a complex discipline. Primarily drawn from the technical field, 3av considers the key interactions of cooperation with economics and politics—highly controversial and constantly evolving social disciplines—as crucial, as well as with social fields such as sociology, psychology, and others. However, regarding working methods capable of consolidating these interactions, there is an astounding lack of emphasis on methods traditionally linked to technical disciplines. An open, critical, and reflective debate on how to incorporate these methods into the daily work of cooperation actors seems essential for credible progress in consolidating cooperation in the coming years.