South-South cooperation is grounded in the idea that partners from the developing world are well placed to propose solutions inspired by their own experiences. A study of the dynamics of the circulation of instruments of public policy framed in the agricultural sector between Brazil and Sub-Saharan Africa under the Lula administration (2003–2010) reveals that political entrepreneurs play a key role in the early transfer stages of this process and that a technical logic of policy transfer through South-South cooperation may pose important challenges to the later stages of reception and adaptation. A notion of complementarity between agribusiness and family farming that reflects recent governmental discourse has been influential in the formulation of initiatives.