Chinese government donates 32,000 masks to Uruguayan National Sports Secretariat in May 2020

On the week of May 11 through May 17, a donation of at least 32,000 masks was handed over to the Uruguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the Chinese government. Then, on May 19, 2020, officials from the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry, Undersecretary Carolina Ache and General Director of International Cooperation Federico Perazza, met with representatives from the Uruguayan National Sports Secretariat, including Mr. Sebastián Bauzá, to hand over 32,000 masks to the National Sports Secretariat. Harvard's Mask Diplomacy Dataset estimated the value of the donation to be USD 12,800. The pandemic protective wear will be given out to the public at 114 sports venues across Uruguay in order to mitigate the spread of COVID - 19. The National Children's Football Organization (ONFI) was to help the Sports Secretariat with the distribution as well.

Additional details

1. Because the Chinese government first handed this donation over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which subsequently provided it to the National Sports Secretariat, there is a meaningful chance these 32,000 masks were part of a larger donation to the national government writ large, and this portion was distributed to the Sports Secretariat. However, there is not sufficient evidence to link it to any particular donation, and there are no projects currently captured by AidData that satisfy all of the following: (1) Received by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2) on the week prior to May 19, 2020 (3) that provided a donation of masks equivalent to or exceeding 32,000. Huawei's donation (captured via project #69049) comes close to satisfying these criteria, and photographs of the donation containers appear to match those given to the Sports Secretariat. However, the materials arrived in Uruguay on April 17, 2020, confirmed via photographs that match the interior of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building (see project #91466, for example). It is also possible that the donation was one of those provided first to one of Uruguay's diplomatic missions in China (the date typically reported publicly and captured by AidData as the project's end date) and later to Uruguay. However, there would be insufficient evidence to link this project to any individual project of that variety.

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