The Spanish Cooperation suspends

In the process of legal and institutional reform of the Spanish Cooperation, currently being processed in the Congress of Deputies, the OECD Development Assistance Committee has recently published its eighth evaluation of this policy carried out by this international organization on all countries donors.

The conclusions of the four-year review were disclosed last January, when work was still underway to renew the old Law 23/1998 on International Cooperation for Development and its entire system.

However, it is very striking that those responsible for Spanish Cooperation have not incorporated into this reform the results that emerge from this important international evaluation.

Nor have they disseminated the report, which they have not even made available to the political and institutional leaders working on this relevant reform process.

And a good number of relevant data and observations have not been taken into account in the draft new

currently being processed, opening important questions.

The report highlights Spain's commitment to the 2030 Agenda at the highest level, using it as a lever and catalyst to strengthen its development cooperation policy.

At the same time, the valuable role of NGOs in Spanish Cooperation is emphasized, as they implement 56% of bilateral official development assistance (ODA) (from country to country), channeling 86% of Spain's intervention. in fragile contexts.

However, this undoubted importance is not adequately recognized in the current draft of the new law, giving NGOs a very marginal role.

Along with the considerable role of the Spanish Cooperation in the delegated cooperation of the EU (executing the budget of this body), being the third country to promote this instrument, the role of the Country Association Frameworks (MAP) in the processes of dialogue with the receiving territories.

In turn, the construction of a specific response and recovery strategy against the Covid-19 pandemic is highlighted, in dialogue with all the actors and institutions involved in this foreign policy.

The CAD criticizes the breach of the commitment to reach 0.4% of GNI in official development aid by 2020, given that this year we will barely exceed 0.2%

On the other hand, the CAD criticizes the breach of the commitment to reach 0.4% of the Basic National Income (GNI) in ODA by 2020, given that this year we will barely exceed 0.2%.

At the same time, the institutional and budgetary fragmentation of the Spanish cooperation system is insisted on, something that is maintained and becomes natural with the new Cooperation Law project.

In turn, it negatively values ​​the Development Promotion Fund (Fonprode), whose elimination is proposed in the new law in process, which will be replaced by a new Spanish Fund for Sustainable Development (FEDES), whose scope is unknown. .

It is striking that the reports and tables provided by those responsible omit decisive information on important actors, such as local entities or universities,

Among the main observations made by the authors of the review, they highlight: the lack of an integrated and unified vision that allows a flexible and strategic intervention, an insufficient human resources policy that reduces quality and long-term vision throughout the system, the lack of accumulation of knowledge and information about their interventions to feed decision-making, financial cooperation that is very deficient in objectives, controls and safeguards, together with the need to promote humanitarian diplomacy.

One of the most striking data of this evaluation is the analysis made by the CAD on the degree of incorporation that has been made of the recommendations made in its previous assessment.

Thus, of the eighteen that they did in 2016, only two have been applied, six remain unfulfilled and ten would be only partially implemented.

This shows the low degree of acceptance of the observations that this organization has been making to improve many of the deficiencies and problems of a cooperation system that presents important and profound gaps.

But also, this highlights the null value that Spanish Cooperation gives to the culture of evaluation and learning, as a space for knowledge management that feeds decision-making, another of the fundamental deficiencies presented by the current draft of the Law on Cooperation for Sustainable Development.

Carlos Gómez Gil

is a full professor at the University of Alicante and academic director of the Interuniversity Master's Degree in Development Cooperation at this university.

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