Emphasising the human rights focus that underpins the strategy, the president maintained that “the reason for crossing this bridge is that all efforts should be focused on this goal and on the human subject”.

Vice President Ana Helen Chacón also participated in the launch. In her speech, strongly linked to the principles of transparency and open government, Chacón indicated that “Bridge to Development” means “removing the blinders of political clientelism”. The Minister of Human Development and Social Inclusion, Carlos Alvarado, and the Commissioner for Social Affairs, Emilio Arias, also participated in the launch. All of the country's ministers and deputy ministers, representatives of the international community, and government officials were present.

The European Union's EUROsociAL II Programme provided support for formulation of the strategy. EUROsociAL II collaborated with two technical assistance missions. In the first place, Ana Fonseca, who participated in the design of Brazil Without Poverty and led its implementation in the first year, took part in October 2014 in an intense week of work at the workshop for formulating the strategy component aimed at extreme poverty. In the second, Fabián Repetto, a prominent expert on social policy in Latin America, collaborated with the Presidential Social Council in designing the system of inter-agency linkages.

“Bridge to Development” has various strengths. Constructed based on an intense effort by 33 social institutions in the country working together under the leadership of teams from the Ministry of Human Development and Social Inclusion, the Presidential Social Council, and the Joint Social Aid Institute, it innovates by incorporating the concept of human rights into its foundational axis. Based on this vision, it aims to become a comprehensive strategy that addresses the multiple dimensions of poverty by linking the social institutions and their programme offerings in the territory through the figure of co-managers.