In 2021, the OECD conducted the "peer review" of Spanish cooperation and produced a report assessing the progress made since the last review in 2016. The report highlights successes and challenges and makes recommendations for the future. The countries that reviewed Spanish cooperation were the Czech Republic and Japan.
In 2021, Spain ranked 13th in terms of volume of funds among donor countries, with 0.25% of ODA, undoubtedly a great advance with respect to the 0.17% of 2016, but far below what is expected of the country, Europe's fifth largest economy. The report also highlights the reform process underway, which should conclude with the reform of the legislative and regulatory framework, the definition of new priorities and objectives for Spanish cooperation and an increase in the ODA budget to reach 0.7% by 2030.
At the presentation of the report, the chair of the OECD’s DAC, Susanna Moorehead, highlighted Spain's commitment to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as very positive, as well as the work that Spanish cooperation carries out in Latin America and Africa in areas such as gender equality, building inclusive partnerships and investing in peace with a more than commendable application of the humanitarianism-development-peace nexus. She also highlighted the importance that Spain attaches to collaboration with European Union (EU) institutions and other partners, pointing to the great asset that NGOs - which implement 86% of ODA in fragile contexts - represent, allowing Spain to act at a very local level, thus strengthening trust and participation.
It recognises the efforts that have been made in recent years to strengthen the profile of cooperation, attempting to maintain capacities and an international presence, reinforcing the commitment to an open and decentralised system, defining strategies, improving policy dialogue, making room for new actors, and increasing resources and the link with citizens. Moreover, this all takes place in a context of uncertainty and political instability, although the report adds that insufficient progress has been made with regard to the recommendations made by the DAC in 2016.
While the efforts made are significant, the report adds that in some cases they are clearly insufficient and puts forward a series of recommendations aimed at improving its strategic direction, streamlining its administrative framework, strengthening its human resources and fully mobilising its financial cooperation.
The DAC considers that for development cooperation to be more effective, the political centre of the system and the leading role of the SECI (Spain’s Secretary of State for International Cooperation) needs to be strengthened, based on its specific mandate in the area. In addition, Spain needs to continue efforts to clarify the division of labour between the MAEC (Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and AECID (the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation), in particular with regard to strategic planning and budgeting, partnership building and the management of multilateral contributions. A strategy urgently needs to be developed that integrates all instruments into the objectives of the cooperation system, with the same standards of management, diligence, risk, transparency and learning capacity, as well as regional and local cooperation entities and approaches.
The DAC reiterates the need for progress in terms of improving economic and human resources. Recent budgetary commitments have not been met, the target of 0.4% by 2020 has not been reached, and the 0.5% promised for the end of this legislature is unlikely to be. In 2021, we remained at 0.25%, which is half the average contribution among EU countries, and the forecast for 2022 is 0.28%. In addition, Spanish cooperation needs to meet other budgetary targets, such as allocating 10% of ODA to HA, and to draw up a roadmap with intermediate targets on the way to achieving 0.7%.
Human resources policies are another challenge mentioned by the DAC. This is a recurrent, unresolved issue that is vitally important for the improvement of the system. The lack of career development opportunities, poor employment conditions, the complexity of contractual arrangements, as well as the limited use of the local talent pool are factors that hamper Spain's ability to attract and retain talent, but also to exploit internal knowledge. The DAC recommendations, similar to those expressed by the Cooperation Council, include (i) ensuring that the number and composition of staff at all levels and in all institutions allows each institution to fulfil its mandate; (ii) creating career development opportunities that do away with the distinction between Madrid and the technical cooperation offices; (iii) improving employment conditions so as to retain talent, including for expatriate staff; and (iv) giving a greater role to locally recruited staff.
The report devotes significant space to planning and knowledge management. Despite the efforts made, the capacity of the system is significantly limited when it comes to collecting results and converting them into institutional learning. There is a lack of a sustainable strategic vision, based on the systematisation of data and monitoring of the results by each and every one of the actors that make up the system.
Another challenge mentioned by the DAC and worked on extensively in the Cooperation Council, has to do with the policy constraints for financial cooperation. The approval process for operations is extremely cumbersome. Spain needs to simplify its current institutional arrangements, make its operations more efficient and complement them with safeguards and guarantees, in line with its new policy and plans to extend financial cooperation.
With regard to humanitarian action, the DAC highlights the value of the humanitarian policy, its ambition and global vision, but notes that it is difficult to implement due to the limited scope of the instruments that have been developed. It cites as an example the new Early Recovery Humanitarian Fund, which covers initial humanitarian assistance plus six months of funding.
However, this often does not reflect the reality of fragile contexts where the transition to early development requires more flexible and less fragmented approaches, which are part of a broader continuum ranging from crisis management to development.
Finally, the report also focuses on the bureaucratic aspects of cooperation (administrative burden), which it considers excessive, inflexible and unsustainable.