News for 2012

2012 has been a key year for the Spanish Cooperation which results in an eddying of what we have being use to and the starting point of a new “age” with the following characteristics: 1) no budget, 2) prioritization of foreign policies interest over development or poverty reduction, 3) end of planning by sector to start a result based management framed by country-base discussions.

1)       NO BUDGET:   

Public cuts are affecting ODA more than other sectors. The 2012 cut happened in the middle of the year affect the MoFA more than any other and mainly at the cooperation line; however in the 2013 budget we see that there are lines (“external actions aboard” –embassies) that are increasing while ODA goes on with the decreasing.

The big amounts of Spanish ODA are essentially mandatory contributions as a member of the EU, but also include items whose impact on poverty reduction is questionable (loans foreseen in 2013: 385 million), or that do not generate new resources for poor countries (245 million Euros in debt cancellation operations).

In total ODA has suffered an accumulated reduction of the 70% since 2009. The total amount is important to asses in which level this government is not interested in ODA anymore, but, even more important to value this is look into detail the way the budget is organized.

2)       Prioritization of foreign policies interest over development or poverty reduction. Only 40% of ODA will be managed by the MoFA. Nearly 60% of ODA will be provided by other ministries than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, which is, according to the Cooperation Law, the responsible for the direction of cooperation policy and the only one with a specialized agency in the field. In 2011, the ratio was the reversed (56% MoFA, 44% other ministries). The Spanish Agency for International Cooperation is still losing weight. In 2013 only 14% of total ODA will be managed by AECID, and a big part of that will be allocated in already committed programs or in the expenses of closing offices and fired people. It is easy, after reading PP’s electoral program, to understand that the money managed by other ministries is more sensible to be used according to political interests and outside of the control of civil servants and officials linked with development or with higher technical knowledge on cooperation.

3)       End of planning by sector to start a result based management framed by country-base discussions. The draft of the IV Master Plan that is going through discussion at this time is a radical change from the previous as it is not articulated by sectors anymore, but by “management for development results”, following the recommendations for the Spanish cooperation done by the DAC. It is a big change happening while the budget is so little that we can doubt about the possibility of carrying it out. The document speaks repeatedly of “prioritizing” interventions but does not set criteria for this prioritization, or either the framework of results that the Spanish cooperation want to contribute with. Apparently the objectives and prioritization will take place at country level during the negotiation of the Framework of Country Partnership (MAPs). In the current frameworks, which now need to be reviewed, basic social services, especially in the case of Latin America, have not been prioritized. If the weight of health in 2009 was around 11% of the total ODA, in 2011 will not be reach even the 5%. If you rely on MAPs, whose negotiation process has been questioned on several occasions, the% will still drop. While important decisions will take place at country level there is the need to change the way Spanish NGOs have been advocating during the last 8 years, targeting, mainly, MoFA at Madrid.