Looking forward

As this analysis of the various elements of reform illustrates, the Spanish government has made considerable efforts to catch up to the international consensus on good donorship. The claim that Spain has “normalised” its development cooperation practices is valid. Aid volume has increased, declarations on joining the mainstream of international development have become frequent and policies have been aligned with international standards. Planning has become more professional and is guided by international frameworks of poverty reduction. In some areas, Spain has even assumed a leadership role in setting the global agenda. There is an emerging attempt to base development policies on evidence, and then debate such with civil society actors. The current administration makes efforts to look beyond project aid, and integrates issues such as immigration and policy coherence. Aid allocation has increasingly focussed on poorer countries, and specific strategies for middle-income countries have been debated. Moreover, debt has been subsumed under developmental criteria.

In fact, the last three years have witnessed the biggest shift ever in Spanish development cooperation towards greater effectiveness in terms of volume, institutions and instruments. When compared to other European experiences, this rapid reform is unparalleled, and merits praise. There is indisputable political will within Spain to increase the quality of its development cooperation to a level deserving of the world’s eighth largest donor.

Looking to the challenge of how to translate these aspirations into concrete outcomes and, particularly, institutional capacities, the record is more mixed. Institutionalisation is still a weak point in Spanish development cooperation. The government should increase efforts to build the organizational strength that would enable it to continuously work towards the Millennium Development Goals of 2015, namely a 50 percent reduction of world poverty. Similarly, the actual measurement of the impact and feedback of lessons learnt should pursue greater effectiveness. Although a new strategic architecture of annual plans, country strategy papers and sector strategies has been defined, operational details and measurable objectives tend to be pushed forward to further documents. Thus, planning is menaced to get stuck at the level of intent. While a number of strategies have been prepared, mechanism to ensure that they are being implemented or followed up are still to be strengthened. The institutional structure in partner countries – the OTC – is not yet mandated or staffed to fulfil its supposedly new role of negotiating and coordinating public policies, nor is the central office in Madrid fully equipped to lead and support these processes. The culture and mechanisms of adequate learning from past experience, through evaluations, still need to be installed. As such, a gap persists between statements from Madrid and realities in field offices, departments of partner governments, and, ultimately, the conditions of the poor in the countries of the South.

Spain endeavours to be a modern donor, adhering to concepts of ‘ownership’ and ‘new aid modalities’. However, more time may yet be required for the shift in its fundamental model of providing development assistance to take hold. Large numbers of projects are still implemented through NGOs, despite the fact that Spanish NGOs – with few noteworthy exceptions – have not yet examined their comparative advantage, and the place of NGOs and that of civil society in the new aid architecture. Generally, country offices still think in terms of project implementation, and are not sufficiently prepared to engage in political dialogue over comprehensive development plans. The institutional adjustment, to improve the capacities of the Agency to act as a bilateral donor in direct implementation, has been delayed and will be a major cultural change for the agency. Similarly, Spanish policy departments still need to be strengthened to be able to systematically cooperate with and influence multilateral channels. Against this background of the pace of these reforms, the steep increase in aid volume can even be considered problematic.

As change always generates resistance, both within the Spanish government and within civil society, there seems to be an inertia in changing the model of cooperation from a dispersed, project-based mode of micro-management – “aid!” – towards a model of political and technical dialogue on public policies in partner countries – “development!”. This would mean building institutions and working at the intersection of the state, civil society and the private sector to tip the balance towards more socially-inclusive and pro-poor outcomes. For now, much of Spanish development cooperation still bypasses domestic structures in recipient countries.

Having underlined its ethical objectives in international development, the Government has increased its own transparency when engaging with the domestic audience. This communication could be further deepened. The improvement of consultation mechanisms with informed civil society will only add to the quality of aid programming. The Government has nothing to hide regarding its development policies. To that end, the Development Council could be a showcase for the new development policy. Therefore it should depart even more from its role as an adjunct body, whose working dynamic is controlled by the government. If an independent president or vice-president would be allowed, the council could assume a more technical profile based on evidence and expertise rather than political bargain. The Council should be encouraged to release more public statements on the quality of policies and instruments. Its minutes should be publicly available. In addition, its members – at least the elected and appointed ones – should be given more visibility. The most important documents – such as the reports on coherence – should be publicly disseminated in more dedicated manner. A web-site of the Council could help to bridge the gap between its members and the general public, as well as to go beyond Madrid and to reach further out to all Spanish provinces. For now, although the legitimacy of the Council has been enhanced by its new regulations, the agenda of work is still too exclusively defined by the SECI. Overall, relations with nongovernmental and academic sectors have improved, but a number of opportunities have been missed to engage civil society in open, transparent consultative dialogue on more technical issues.

Looking at the other side of the equation, civil society has not fully embraced its challenging role as watchdog of government policies. Its has not yet tackled the politics of development, for instance the issue of coherence in Spain, and the issues of governance and building effective states in the South. The NGO sector seems more content to be included again in some policy spaces. More efforts are being dedicated to raising public funds for projects with ultimately charitable ends, rather than critically evaluating government policies and aligning to the new aid modalities. As things seems today, large parts within both NGOs and the AECI seem comfortable withy the traditional activities of negotiating micro-projects, rather than getting more strategic.

Spain has the advantage that it can count on extraordinarily high public support for development cooperation. Such public support, however, often involved a rather sentimental take on development assistance. Today, new challenges of aid effectiveness, mutual accountability between donors and aid recipients, and global governance of the development cooperation regime have emerged. These changes demand a more analytical approach towards international relations and poverty reduction. Spain’s development policy needs a well-informed civil society that looks critically into these issues.

To foster the growth of such civil society action, the Secretary of State for International Cooperation has both to provide timely and adequate information. It also must open more spaces for consultation in order to engage and commit civil society organizations, and free their creative and investigative capacities that all too often get stuck heading down the dead-end roads of project micro-management, old-fashioned aid niches, or knee-jerk, systemic opposition. By playing the ball within the triangle of state officials, academics and civil society, the intellectual muscles of all will get trained. International development is an area where this is ever more important.

A reform-minded government allied with civil society, dedicated to ‘end poverty now’, could lock in commitments towards the world’s poor and make them an indisputable part of sustainable state policy – whomever governs. To do this, development cooperation has to be pushed into the limelight, both in terms of quantity – insisting on the 0.7 percent commitment – and quality – searching for the most effective and legitimate channels for international cooperation, be they NGOs, AECI, multilateral partners or others.

Overall, the Spanish government has made significant steps towards increasing aid volume, cautious but dedicated advances towards improving aid effectiveness, and has returned to the international fold of mainstream development policy. While political will and declarations concerning pro-poor, inclusive policies and multilateral instruments are essential, the technical side of translating these aspirations into outcomes remains a challenge for Madrid. Now, more effort should be put into reforming the hardware of delivery. Additionally, more open involvement by civil society will kick-start Spain’s development sector into a virtuous circle, encouraging the NGO sector to look at the bigger picture, and pushing the administration towards effective donorship. As things look now, these tasks – reforming institutions, finding Spain’s comparative strengths, and engaging more professionally with civil society – are challenges that cannot wait to be confronted.