At the time to mark for the geopolitical uncertainty and the cuts in the help of the Development Officer (AOD), the Global Health Institute of Barcelona (ISGlobal), a center impined by the «La Caixa» Foundation, and Future Planet – El País They organized a Dialogue on the future of international cooperative in the Athenaeum of Madrid.
The meeting, which took place on May 6, brought together Kevin Watkins, Visiting professor of the London School of Economics and former executive director of ODI Global and Save The Children in the United Kingdom, and Antón LeisDirector of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and exponior of the OECD Secretary General.
The appointment took place a few weeks before the IV International Development Financing Conferencethat will take place in Seville in July, and that is emerging as an opportunity to redefine the bases of the multilateral cooperation system. The next months will be crucial to achieve this goal: both Gavi, the Alliance for Vaccination, as the World Fund will prepare for its respectful conferences for replacement of funds, which will be founded to maintain the effort of vaccination of vaccination of vaccination of yy funds, which are based paraphils against the three great pandemics, high impact interventions for the development of the countries and the global prosperity.
The risk of decline in international cooperation
Kevin Watkins began his speech with a clear warning: the multilateral order of cooperation is internationally, and the decisions made in the heroaxes will be holding. «We are stopping seeing cooperation as a global common good, and that has real consequences on the lives of millions of people,» he said.
And it is not just about the United States. The main European donor countries, Germany, the United Kingdom and France, have already announced Help cuts. Watkins pointed out the need to look for alternatives, such as debt condonacy or the strengtheing of fiscal capacities in the most vulnerable countries. He also proposed to move away from the technical speeches to cease a New public narrative that will connect with citizenship. «Opinion surveys in the United Kingdom showed that two thirds of the population would support to cut the help of 0.2% of GDP to finance an equivalent expense in defense.»
In addition, he denounced the inefficiency of the real cooperation system, characterized by an exesive fragmentation and the proliferation of executing agencies that efficiency coherence and impact: we cannot permeators to such a system «in such as. Watkins warned.
Europe before a responsibility for responsibility
For its part, Antón Leis dismissed the key role that the European Union can assume as a donor block director in a American replication context. He pointed out that IV International Conference of Financing of Development of Seville can mark the beginning of a structural transformation of the system And stressed the importance of protecting fundamentals: the international humanitarian system and global health architecture. «Cooperation must stop being seen as a compassionate option to pass an investment in stability and global health,» said the director of AECID.
Leis advocated a More coherent model, with less fragmentacia and more horizontal alianca. He opted to use cooperation as a lever to unlock other financial sources, and transformations to boost structural instead of isolated projects.
New narrators, new pacts
During the public interventions shift, the former president of the UN General Assembly, María Fernanda EspinosaDefended the need to Rethink the narrative of cooperativeness from a more inclusive, feminist and global well -oriented perspective. «The word ‘help’ must disappear from vocabulary, and replace yourself with ‘cooperation’,» he said. He also claimed a more ambitious approach at the Summit of Seville, which center on the global social pact and returns to Ciadania the confidence in institutions and multilateralism.
The moderator Beatriz Lecumbumri He closed the event with a call to the transformative communication: «We have to make the vital in attractive. One of the main challenges ahead is to convince Ciadanía of what happens in other places also affects us.»
