The fight against poverty and hunger is the noblest battle in which citizens can engage. We find ourselves facing an historic opportunity to eradicate inequalities, and the Government and Spanish people want to be first in line for this fight.
The Government has made public policy for cooperative development a key element of its foreign activities. Its number one goal, the fight against poverty, is understood not only as the need to overcome the lack of income and goods, but also that of expanding the rights, opportunities and abilities of the least advantaged people.
It has to do with a top-most goal whose action requires a national policy created from a broad consensus among all Spanish cooperative agents, the central Administration, Autonomous Communities. Local entities, Parliamentary groups and the civilian population.
A first step towards achieving this national policy was the approval by consensus of all players for the 2009-2012 Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation, the framework document establishing the objectives, criteria, and sectorial and geographic priorities for cooperative development, which all agents participated in preparing.
Together with the coordination and complementariness of national and international players, the Master Plan is committed to greater policy consistency and improved Official Aid to Development (OAD) management policy and its increase. The text thus includes the Government’s promise to double our OAD in 2008 with the effort of all our public administrations and to reach the horizon of 0.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in the near future.
The Millennium Declaration and other agreements derived from the United Nations Summits are the Master Plan’s principal references. All Spanish cooperative interventions are and will be aimed at contributing to the fight against poverty, the promotion and defense of human rights, environmental conservation, gender equality and respect for cultural diversity—in short, promoting sustainable development.
There is also a commitment to include at least 20 percent of the bilateral GDP for coverage of basic social services (education and health) while strengthening the commitment to the Developing Countries, which will receive at least 20 percent of the Official Aid to Development.
Latin America and the Mediterranean will continue to be our areas of priority attention, but Sub-Saharan Africa will also become a strong commitment for Spanish cooperation.
This Legislature is also dealing with restructuring Spanish humanitarian action—which will receive at least 7 percent of bilateral GDP—and reform of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID) to turn it into a true international development agency, capable of efficiently and transparently managing non-reimbursable OAD resources.