The Government is giving priority to West Africa and the Sahel, the regions from which a large part of the irregular immigrants who reach the Spanish coasts come, in the new Master Plan for Cooperation 2024-2027, approved this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers. The document, which includes the objectives and priorities of Spanish development cooperation until the end of the legislature, foresees that for the first time a cooperation strategy will be drawn up for the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa and identifies Cape Verde, Senegal, Niger, Mali, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea and Mozambique as priority countries in this region.
The other two priority regions for Spanish cooperation are Latin America and the Caribbean (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) and North Africa and the Middle East (Morocco, Mauritania, Palestine, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon; in addition to the “Sahrawi refugee population”). In Asia, only the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, is included. In addition, it will be possible to work “on an ad hoc basis” with other countries to address the achievement of “global goods” or to deal with crises, such as Ukraine and Afghanistan.
These countries include some that are not included in the list of recipients of Official Development Assistance (ODA) drawn up by the corresponding committee of the OECD, but Spain considers that “cooperation cannot be determined solely by the level of income” of a country, which is the criterion applied until now in multilateral forums.
The Master Plan reaffirms the commitment to allocate 0.7% of GDP to Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2030, enshrined in the Cooperation Law approved last year, but, although it outlines three scenarios of budgetary growth to achieve this, it makes clear that the greatest effort will have to be made in the last years of the decade, due to “the need to previously strengthen the management tools of the system in order to absorb in an orderly, effective, coherent and strategic manner” the increase in funds. And also because, it argues, “the 2024 budget extension and the strong increase in GDP make growth more modest during the first part of the growth path.” According to this forecast, starting from 0.3% of GDP in development aid this year, it would reach 0.4% in 2007, which would require an increase of 57% in the three remaining years. In addition, at least 10% of cooperation funds must be allocated to humanitarian aid.
In addition to geographical priorities, the plan identifies sectoral priorities (social, ecological and economic transition), which include strengthening democratic governance, promoting health, food security, education, gender equality, combating climate change, access to water and sanitation and rural development.
These are joined by the cross-cutting principles that should inspire all cooperation activities, such as the promotion of human rights (children and adolescents, the LGBTI community, people with disabilities, the elderly, indigenous peoples and people of African descent), the feminist and gender approach, the fight against poverty and inequalities, climate justice, environmental sustainability, cultural diversity and peace building.
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The aims of Spanish cooperation are in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the 2030 Agenda, the fulfilment of which should receive a boost at the International Conference on Financing for Development to be held next year in Spain. The commitment to decentralised cooperation is reflected, among other aspects, in the participation of autonomous communities and local entities in the formulation and execution of development policy through the sectoral conference and the Higher Council for Cooperation. An evaluation office for cooperation will also be set up to measure its results “independently”, according to the document.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who recently travelled to three of the priority countries for Spanish cooperation (Cape Verde, Gambia and Senegal, where he announced aid of 180 million to promote youth employment), says that this four-year plan “lays the foundations for facing new global challenges.”
The Council of Ministers has also approved the new Statute of Cooperating Persons, which replaces the Statute of 2006, and incorporates as new features the definition of different profiles of cooperators, including foreigners; the different types of promoting entities, including consulting companies; or the cases of exclusion and incompatibility; in addition to including the professional category of cooperator in the Public Employment Service (SEPE), recognizing the reimbursement of certain expenses to the relatives of cooperators, confirming the guarantee of a collective insurance or applying the provisions of the 2004 decree on compensation.
This year, approval is also expected to be given to the reform of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the adaptation of the subsidy regulations and the creation of the aforementioned Higher Council for Cooperation and the new Spanish Fund for Sustainable Development (FEDES), central pieces of the reform of the entire Spanish cooperation system that began with the new law.
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