Sub-Saharan Africa
Africa is the world’s poorest continent and where the ODA has had the lowest impact in achieving economic growth and human development. The Master Plan 2005-2008 defines five priority countries and five special attention countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The Foreign Affairs Ministry has just published the Plan for Africa, however this is a declaration of intensions without targets or numbers, that has generated expectations although it does not define mesaurable objectives.
It is feared that aims to reduce poverty are going to be reduced to aims to control migration and other Spanish interests. Apart from this, Spain is moving towards multilateral mechanisms such as the World Bank Funds, the European Investment Bank, the “Education for All-Fast Track” as well as the Multilateral Debt Relief Iniciative. Does Spanish development cooperation have a specific strategy for the African continent? What is the role of bilateral cooperation? What are the criteria to choose the priority countries? What should be the key elements for an African strategy?
Backgrounder by FRIDE
“Spain has taken an honest step towards proposing a plan that articulates the interests and ethical basis of its policy towards Africa.(….) Areas within the Spanish Government interested in promoting human rights and social justice for the civil society that have the capacity to intervene in policy and that they are good for African issues, could contribute the accomplishment of this task.”
Paper by Jokin Alberdi Bidaguren and Eduardo Bidaurratzaga Aurre, Investigators from HEGOA
“The African Plan reduces the importance of vital questions in relation to the priority destination of Aid to Less Developed Countries and to those sectors most sensitive to achieving sustainable human development (health, education, gender, environmental sustainability...) and on the contrary, it puts special emphasis on the use of financial facilities and resources to defend investment interests and Spanish sales, the migratory control and the fight against the terrorism.”
Paper by Nils-Sjard Schulz
It is necessary to “... add a sectorial planning to the Africa Plan ... . This should clearly define the desired effects and impacts, establishing a series of coherent indicators … . Thus, the incoherence between the Africa Plan and The Master Plan for Development Cooperation could be reduced, when the sectorial planning of poverty reduction would be adjusted to the objectives of the Master Plan.”