AECID - Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo

Texto

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation launched the Azahar Programme in December 2001. This initiative involved the Ministry of the Environment, Rural and Marine, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, along with the Autonomous Communities of Andalusia, Asturias, Canary Islands, Castille-La Mancha, Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Madrid, Murcia, Navarre and Valence, the Funds Confederation for Cooperation and Solidarity and the Biodiversity Foundation.

There is a Committee, made up of the coordinators designated by the participants in the Programme, in charge of organising and coordinating all the actions.

The Azahar Programme Committee is also responsible for ensuring the running and follow-up of the Programme, for establishing a permanent information exchange network on the respective actions, for taking into account the participation of new bodies and institutions in the Programme and for carrying out any activity related to the aims and principles of the Programme.

The AECID , through the Direction for Cooperation with Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, ensures the permanent coordination of all committee members, channelling and favouring the exchange of information and calling for Committee meetings. It can also request the assessment of academic and scientific institutions for the development of the Programme.

This initiative is not only a number of actions aimed at achieving sustainable development in the Mediterranean, but instead, and thanks to the different members, it has a multiplying and expanding effect of these actions, seeking their concentration on specific areas as this is the common will of the Programme members.

Among the Programme actions planned to date are:

- Diagnosis on the state of the Spanish cooperation in terms of sustainable development in the Mediterranean;

- Establishment of sectorial and geographic priorities within the areas of action defined in the Programme, in accordance with the principle of joining efforts in order to achieve this multiplying effect of the cooperation actions;

- Development of the cooperation instruments by different actors involved (Ministries, Autonomous Communities, local authorities, NGO’s, associations, etc);

- Identification and design of combined interventions with the participation of different actors according to the principles of complementarity and comparative experience/excellence;

- Promotion of information exchange related to environmental sustainability in the Mediterranean;

- Promotion of a social network of cooperation actors in the Mediterranean and promotion of the debate on sustainable development;

- Raising of public awareness of the situation of sustainable development in the Mediterranean.