We are pleased to provide an update on one of our ongoing initiatives that aim to reframe decentralized cooperation as a recognized aid modality, in line with key objectives of the 2022 Policy Paper that was adopted at the UCLG World Congress. This effort, supported by the financial contribution from Generalitat Catalunya, seeks to enhance the role of local and regional governments in development cooperation through refining definitions and improving data accuracy.
In this context, we are sharing a note from Javier Sánchez Cano, Director of Development Cooperation at Generalitat Catalunya. Javier provides valuable insights into the current progress and ongoing challenges related to decentralized cooperation. His note offers an important perspective on our initiative and serves as an update on the advancements and discussions within the field. The final paper is expected to be published in October 2024.
Note from Javier Sánchez Cano:
Its 2022 Policy Paper “The Role of Local and Regional Governments in Development Cooperation— A New Call to Action towards 2030 and Beyond” updates UCLG’s vision and purpose on decentralized cooperation. Significantly, its second objective reads “Make decentralized cooperation a fully recognized and resourced development cooperation approach.”
On the recognition front, the progress of the last decades is impressive. The OECD alone has recently dedicated a series of monographs to different aspects of development cooperation activities engaged in by local and regional governments and their networks, and decentralized cooperation is the preferred expression to refer to them.
On the resourcing side the picture is more mixed. The general feeling is that an increasing number of development partners –including intergovernmental organizations, international financial institutions, philanthropies and national agencies –have understood the importance of local and regional development, and are promoting new programmes and instruments to work more directly with cities and regions. These are also engaging, with their own resources and capacities, in more international activities, including capacity-building and different forms of technical cooperation. Furthermore: in the current “polycrisis” context, their support is expanding to assist partner cities and regions with problems exacerbated by covid –as urban poverty– or armed conflict –as refugees and forced displacement.
As we notice this positive evolution, we become more aware that we lack the precision and the accurate data that would allow us to measure the monetary flows channelled through decentralised cooperation –and also their effects and impacts. The main source of development statistics –OECD’s Creditor Reporting System, CRS– contains limited information on the official aid delivered by substate agencies. And equally important, decentralised cooperation should refer not only to aid provided by non-central governments, but also to resources channelled through and targeted to them (to and through territorial authorities and their networks). It is therefore not only a question of data availability, but also of definition and scope: What is the conceptual perimeter of decentralised cooperation? Can we think of it as a modality, a development cooperation instrument that can be streamlined as a practical form of intervention for international donors?
With the support of Catalan development cooperation and the participation of ECOPER, the Spanish research centre who has elaborated the recent Decentralised Cooperation reports, the CIB is engaging in a process of reflection to provide some answers to these questions. The objective is not to close the boundaries of decentralised cooperation, but to open up the debate and identify common ground among our community on the specifics of our practice as development professionals. The result should contribute to make progress towards the recognition and resourcing of decentralised cooperation, but also to its effective insertion, in its own right, in the international development system.
Javier Sánchez Cano
DG Development Cooperation, Generalitat de Catalunya