Andalusia is promoting development projects in Central America and Africa
The Andalusian Regional Government and the Andalusian Fund of Andalusian Local Governments for Internacional Cooperation, FAMSI, have presented an agreement to promote development projects in Central America and several African countries.
María José Sánchez Rubio, the Andalusian Regional Government’s ministry of Gender and Social Policies and Ignacio Caraballo, president of FAMSI and president of Deputation of Huelva, highlighted the relevance of a document that shows the strong commitment of local governments as well as the responsibility taken with other territories, supported by the regional government long time ago.
With a budget of €1.5 million to be developed along 2018, the Andalusian Fund of Municipalities is going to carry out actions within the project Strengthening decentralization and associations of municipalities in Morocco, Cape Verde and Sub-Saharan Africa amounting to €304.668. “With this project, we intend to support the start of a process of generation of spaces and exchange and learning between different African networks of municipalities and Andalusia (triangular cooperation) so as to strengthen the role of the networks of municipalities as actors of articulation and strengthening of its partners”, highlighted the head of Equality and Social Policies. In Central America, funds are addressed to support for the vulnerable population through environmental-patrimonial management in the municipality of Quito.
The high representative of social policies in Andalusia pointed the key role of local government in a wider strategy of andalusian cooperation, which is the II Andalusian Plan of Internacional Cooperation for Development (PACODE 2015-2018).
The agreement includes an intervention to support the regional implementation of 2030 Agenda in the local level, promoting different actions for local governments to adapt global agenda to each environment and characteristics. This awareness project seek to spread the participation of all local actors in the regional strategy of Andalusian Government linked to the SDGs.
According to Ignacio Caraballo, president of FAMSI, after years working abroad in development policies, and thanks to the collaboration with the Regional Government, the Andalusian Federation of Municipalities (FAMP) and other actors, FAMSI has become an essential reference for international entities such as United Nations’ agencies or United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). In his words, “it means positioning in the world Andalusia’s brand and the generous and solidarity character of its population towards other territories”.
