Policy Updates

On September 21st, 2023, acting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed the 78^th UN General Assembly and expressed Spain’s commitment towards multilateralism and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

Sánchez focused his speech on accelerating the global response to climate change, particularly on climate adaptation and mitigation. Clmiate commitments made in the speech included:

• EUR 225 million (US$241 million) to the Green Climate Fund;
• EUR 20 million (US$21 million) to the Adaptation Fund; and
• EUR 17 million (US$18 million) to other multilateral instruments working on climate change.

These pledges will be reiterated at the UN Climate Change Conference at COP28, which is slated to take place in the UAE in November 2023.

Sánchez also underlined the need to strengthen multilateral institutions to advance the implementation SDGs and foster gender equality, food security, democracy, and human rights worldwide. He reiterated his commitment to increase development finance and emphasized that Spain was the first donor to announce that 20% of its SDRs would be allocated to low- and middle- income partner countries.

On September 18, 2023, acting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed the SDG Summit, where he underlined the importance of accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Sánchez further reaffirmed Spain’s commitment to achieve 0.7% ODA/GNI by 2030, which was approved as the Law of Sustainable Development by Spanish parliament in February 2023.

Sánchez also announced an EUR 20 million (US$21 million) pledge to IFAD and a funding increase of EUR 120 million (US$128 million) to the SDG Fund.

On July 10, 2023, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation José Manuel Albares participated at the Fourth General Assembly of the Sahel Alliance held in Nouakchott, Mauritania, to hand over Spain’s presidency of this institution to Germany.

Chaired by Spain from June 2020 to July 2023, the Sahel Alliance is a multilateral organization that gathers partner countries from the Sahel, EU donor countries, the World Bank, the AfDB, and the UNDP with the objective of fostering sustainable development and human security in the region.

During the meeting, Albares highlighted achievements from Spain’s three-year presidency of the Sahel Alliance. He underlined the Spanish multipronged commitment to furthering human development, security, and climate change adaptation. In regard to the latter, he foregrounded measures aimed at improving partner countries’ resilience against desertification, severe drought, and floods, as the most important milestones.

Albares also reviewed the AECID's recent interventions to foster health basic services and women empowerment and food security in the region.

On July 10, 2023, German development minister Svenja Schulze took over the Presidency of the Sahel Alliance from Spain.

Schulze outlined three priorities for her presidency:

1. Creating paths out of the crisis by offering more education, training, and employment;
2. Making societies more resilient through social protection and long-term solutions for food security that go beyond emergency relief; and
3. Recovering areas that the government has lost control over and providing people with basic services.
   
   Schulze emphasized the empowerment of girls and women, who are often main income-earners and can significantly impact regional development.
   
   With over EUR28 billion (US$31 billion) in support for initiatives, the Sahel Alliance is the region's biggest alliance of international supporters.

April 25, 2023, the economic think tank ‘One Africa’, in collaboration the AU and other partners, announced plans to organize the first Africa Spain Cooperation Summit in Madrid on July 6-8, 2023.

The event was announced in anticipation of the 2023 Spanish Presidency of the EU Council and in response to the release of the MAEC's Focus Africa 2023, a strategic blueprint that outlines foreign action priorities in the African continent.

Under the title Bridging the gap between Africa and Spain!, this high-level forum aims to gather heads of state and high-level government representatives to address the main challenges and opportunities for cooperation between Africa and Spain. Sustainable development, food security, digitalization, women's empowerment, and climate change will be among the topics covered during the conference.

Spain’s Focus Africa 2023 action plan is tailored around five strategic objectives: peace and security, sustainable development, inclusive economic growth, institutional cooperation, and security.

On March 22-23, 2023, King Felipe VI, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Alvares led the Spanish delegation at the 28th Ibero-American Summit that took place in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

The Summit was held to strengthen the links between the EU and Latin America ahead of the Spanish presidency of the EU Council during the second half of 2023. The 2023 Ibero-American Summit: Together for a fair and sustainable Ibero-America gathered countries from the Latin American and Caribbean regions, Portugal, and Spain to discuss climate change, food security, digitalization, and international finance.

Among other measures, the heads of state and government that participated in the Summit agreed to launch the Roadmap to Achieve Inclusive and Sustainable Food Security in Ibero-America to strengthen supply chains, foster rural development and small producers, facilitate access to new sources of funding to transform agricultural and food systems, and support digitalization in rural areas.

In addition, the leaders also approved the Ibero-American Environmental Charter, which sets the principles for a common response to climate change challenges.

On March 16, 2023, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation José Manuel Albares announced that Spain will reinforce development cooperation links with ECOWAS.

Albares made the announcement during the opening of a workshop held in Madrid, Spain, aimed at reviewing common challenges and shared opportunities between Spain and West African partner countries. He also announced that AECID would develop a new development-related program to strengthen cooperation interventions with ECOWAS.

Western Africa and ECOWAS are among Spain’s top development priorities. Of the EUR230 million (US$246 million) that Spain committed to ECOWAS in 2009, EUR188 million (US$201 million) has been allocated to rural development, agriculture, infrastructures, renewable energies, migration, and gender equality.

On February 16th, 2023, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation José Manuel Albares inaugurated the Spanish cooperation new office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

This is the first development cooperation office that Spain has opened in a priority partner country after the recent approval of the new Spanish Law for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity.

During Albares’ official trip to Ethiopia, he made an address before the AU’s Executive Council and signed the new Country Partnership Framework (‘Marco de Asociaicón País’ or MAP) that will drive Spain’s bilateral development priorities in Ethiopia from2023-2027.

The new MAP between Spain and Ethiopia will account for an ODA budget of at least EUR44 million (US$47 million) in a five-year period.The funding will focus on rural development, food security, global health, and gender equality.

On January 11-12, 2023, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation José Manuel Albares visited Niger, Nigeria, and Guinea Bissau to reiterate Spain’s commitment to Western Africa and the Sahel region.

According to a press release published by the MAEC, this trip aimed to strengthen ties with African countries ahead of the Spanish Presidency of the European Council in the second half of 2023. Albares underlined Spain’s engagement to address several challenges affecting the region such as terrorism, extreme poverty, climate change, and food security.

Albares and the foreign minister of Niger, Hassoumi Massaoudou, signed the new 'Country Partnership Framework' (‘Marco Asociación País’ or MAP) to steer Spain’s development cooperation interventions in the Sahel country for the period 2023-2027. The new plan focused on rural development; socio-economic development; health; education, with a special attention to girls’ education; food security; and gender equality. The MAEC estimated that Spain will disburse around €60 million (US$64 million) to Niger as bilateral ODA for the period 2023-2027.

On December 14, 2022, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez participated at the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ‘EU-ASEAN Summit’ in Brussels.

Sánchez underlined the importance of international cooperation and multilateralism at the event. In particular, he emphasized the need to accelerate efforts to fight climate change, citing insufficient progress at COP27. Sánchez also reiterated his support for reforming global finance architecture in order to foster global solidarity, mitigate the effects of climate change, and adapt ecosystems for future crises.

He also talked about food security and the urgent need to improve global value chains and global food production capacities.