The Sixth Spanish Cooperation Master Plan for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity (2024-2027), approved on 23 July 2024 by the Council of Ministers at the proposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, has been generally well received by all actors, highlighting the priority and commitment that Spanish Cooperation (EC) has made to human rights, feminist cooperation, social and environmental justice, the fight against poverty and inequalities, the recognition of diversity, the promotion of a culture of peace and the eradication of all forms of violence and discrimination. Some of these priorities are long-standing, others are newer, but all are highly relevant.
This is the first master plan following the approval of the new Law 1/2023 on Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity, which represents an opportunity to translate the new pronouncements contained in the Law into a strategic and operational document. Among these would the value attach to humanitarian action, which has a clear, detailed and well-structured content in this Master Plan (PD on its Spanish Acronym), including the commitment to assign 10% of ODA to Humanitarian Action, as stated in Law 1/2023.
Among the new features of the 6th PD is framing the thematic priorities around three major commitments to transformation, which it calls “transitions” and which are key to fulfilling the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thus we see that the Social Transition seeks to reduce inequalities and promote social inclusion by applying the human rights approach, gender equality, and the fight against poverty; the Ecological Transition prioritises environmental sustainability and climate justice, promoting practices that protect the environment and mitigate climate change; and the Economic Transition aims to create fairer and more sustainable economies, focusing on inclusive economic development and the creation of decent jobs.
However, beyond the consensus on the framework adopted, there is a lack of greater development and, on occasions, a need to broaden the focus of some of the issues covered by the three transitions. In the first of the transitions, the reference to migration, one of the consequences of which are migratory crises, almost always refers to the policies of the sending countries and not to those of the receiving and transit countries, which have a great deal of responsibility in the implementation of migratory policies. And in the area of health, the proposal that the priority for cooperation in health should be to promote the Spanish health system, given the public complaints that have accumulated regarding its functioning in various areas, seems inadequate. A greater emphasis on the need to strengthen public health systems and the strategy of supporting primary health care as the best way to promote the right to health for all people would be more appropriate. On the other hand, the pandemic has taught us how important it is for the population to have access to affordable vaccines and essential medicines. It would be important in the coming years to support collaboration between WHO and the World Medicines Patent Pool for ‘access to medicines and health technologies through patent pooling and non-exclusive voluntary licensing’; and to propose that WHO explores with WTO and WIPO the necessary measures to respond urgently to situations of serious risk to global health, through the guaranteed and affordable provision to developing countries of the necessary vaccines and essential medicines. In terms of just ecological transition, its inclusion and the commitment of Spanish ODA to support the efforts of Spanish Development Cooperation partner countries in terms of mitigation and, above all, climate adaptation from a climate justice approach, is highly relevant. However, the measures proposed in the area of environmental sustainability should be more forceful in order to face the challenges of climate change.
In the humanitarian section, references to the Triple Nexus are welcome, although it would have been desirable to further develop a key instrument for dealing more effectively with complex and protracted crises, such as armed conflict, forced displacement and the effects of climate change. On the other hand, a greater presence of the Triple Nexus in other sections of the PD is lacking, as its application is not exclusive to humanitarian action, but its implementation in development actions is very relevant. The same is true of the references to the feminist approach, which would have required greater development and precision.
The complexity of the international context makes a certain degree of flexibility in geographical priorities relevant, as stated in the PD, as long as it complies with the international commitments, such as that of dedicating between 0.15 and 0.20 % of its GNI in the form of aid to the least developed countries (LDCs); in other words, to attend to ‘special cases of human rights violations in contexts of fragility and situations of high social and environmental impact with global repercussions’. However, working in 36 countries as set out in the PD may be excessive, if all of them have priority status.
In the ‘must’ of the 6th PD, we must point out the absence of a results framework that would allow us to evaluate the Plan a posteriori, or of a roadmap for ODA to reach 0.55% of GNI in 2027, as an intermediate step towards reaching 0.7% in 2030, as stipulated in the Law. The PD does include tentative budget scenarios for its duration, but these scenarios are neither explained nor justified, and are therefore not very credible. The EC's commitment to multilateralism is credible but not very precise. There are more and more global problems that cannot be tackled by each country alone and require the cooperation of all. The EC is committed to strengthening multilateral action, although there is a lack of in-depth reflection to clarify which institutions of the multilateral system it intends to work with as a priority and to create strategic alliances.
In short, the PD committed to the2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals requires that the Reform of the Cooperation System envisaged in the New Law on Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity comes to fruition.
Text developed with contributions from the opinion of the Development Cooperation Council on the 6th Master Plan.