Last year, the Basque public institutions allocated more than €81 million to solidarity initiatives in Southern countries
In 2022, Basque public development cooperation institutions supported 1,189 initiatives in 68 countries, and also in the Basque Country. In total, they provided 81.3 million euros, managed by 228 Basque Development NGOs and by 335 entities in impoverished countries. The details of these figures are available in the report entitled Basque Cooperation in Figures, 2022, recently published on the Basque Public Cooperation Portal.
The Basque Public Cooperation Portal is an inter-institutional initiative involving eLankidetza-Basque Agency for Development Cooperation run by the Basque Government, the three Basque Provincial Governments, the City Councils from the three Basque capitals and Euskal Fondoa, supported by the Hegoa Institute at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). This tool outlines solidarity initiatives supported by these eight institutions, representing the greatest volume of funds devoted to development cooperation initiatives, humanitarian and emergency action in Southern countries and education for social transformation in the Basque Country.
A few general concepts
As a new feature, for the first time this report will analyse the Basque public cooperation institutions’ contribution to the 2030 Agenda. The main contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) focussed on gender equality – SDG 5 (20%), reduction of inequality – SDG 10 (16%), and peace, justice and strong institutions – SDG 16 (almost 16%).
At a regional level, in 2022, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean received almost 30% of the funds, while South America and Sub-Saharan Africa received around 23% each. Basque solidarity was mainly sent to Guatemala, Colombia, El Salvador and Peru.
By category, out of the 81.3 million euros disbursed, 60% was intended for international development cooperation initiatives and 21% to humanitarian and emergency action to support populations in humanitarian crises.
Almost 11% of the funds, 8.8 million euros, were used for actions concerning education for social transformation in the Basque Country. Training and awareness-raising are the areas most worked on, and in almost half the cases in the informal education field.
A joint transparency initiative
The Basque Public Cooperation Portal, presented to the public in 2018, is an inter-institutional initiative to encourage transparency and help to harmonise and coordinate development cooperation from the Basque Country. It is also a tool to study this subject.
The website compiles information on the main Basque public agents who devote resources to cooperation and the projects developed per year, place and institution. In addition, it gathers complementary information to provide a visual understanding of the Basque Country’s public solidarity work as a whole, using graphs and analysis.
