I would just start this article with the intention of everything remaining the same. Cooperation is, and will continue to be, one of the logical losers in this new era of failure in international relations. The most important event of the year, the IV International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4), provided an unequivocal test. It aimed to review the global financial architecture and promote a renewed horizon to strengthen the development agenda. His result, he Sevilla’s commitmentdemonstrates the combination that will very predictably characterize the sector over the coming years.
On the one hand, many of you remain committed to the global development agenda. But on the other hand, a rougher playing field; an à la carte multilateralism which is projected as a possibility and not as a guarantee, through an immense atomization of initiatives in search of political support and concrete results.
Consequently, at the “catalytic” moment, how to announce the most unconditional (with the tendency towards frankness so characteristic of the sector), at the apocalyptic moment, how to obtain the most agoreros. But there is a sort of rite of passage in this 2025, of obligatory metamorphosis for a sector which has long needed to renew itself.
My suggestion is therefore to regain a certain overall vision, which allows us to understand the list of challenges we face and to improve the capacity for action and adaptation of the development cooperation sector. Yo empezaría highlighting three aspects.
My suggestion is to regain a global vision, which allows us to understand the list of challenges we face and to improve the capacity for action and adaptation of the development cooperation sector.
The first refers to the key elements of the development program, known but worth remembering, which did not meet expectations. I offer three examples. The first of the 2030 Agenda. The absence of five years to respect the limit, therefore only 18% of 169 goals Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on the verge of being achieved. The second concerns the financing gap. The funding gap to promote development goals has continued to grow and now exceeds four billion dollars per year. Third, I respect the broad consensus on climate generated by the Paris Summit. Years later, this historic agreement continues to be plagued by blockages and payment defaults. Three examples that raise an uncomfortable question, but which we cannot ignore. If these are the results of a decade of commitment to multilateralism and a common agenda, how will the remaining results be the result of reductions and inadequacies? This question does not refer to a hypothesis, but to the reality of which we are aware.
The second aspect alludes to what I call the great epidemic of global brutality. This is not hyperbole, it is a phenomenon that affects the entire planet and is manifested by the unstoppable advance of threats to human security. The evolution of internal conflicts, war between states, repression, human rights violations, refusal of humanitarian aid and, in general, the use of much more aggressive language constitute an unstoppable phenomenon, both worrying and difficult to manage, and with unpredictable destructive potential.
The third is the confusion between ambiguous rhetoric and the international community’s response to development commitments. One of the great paradoxes that we have experienced is that at a time when Official Development Assistance (ODA) should play a more important role in trying to respond to all these problems, it is subject to continuous reductions. According to the recent OECD report Regarding the state of aid, in 2024 ODA decreased by 9% in net terms, and a further decrease of between 9% and 17% is expected in 2025. The amount is not as problematic as the lack of commitment suggests. You can criticize Donald Trump all you want, but it would be more practical to focus on the EU, which doesn’t really offer much guidance.
In 2015, the EU presented itself as a natural leader in defending the New Global Deal for Development, as a donor and strategic ally, supporting mutual interests and shared responsibility. This “illusion of relevance”, so precisely and so painfully described by the economist Mario Draghi in his speech “What horizon for Europe?contrasts with the progressive silence that has swept EU capitals throughout this year, unable to conceal an indisputable position of dependence and relative weakness. A weakness whose natural character explained this pesimist six years ago in a article in this same newspaper, and there is no more medicine than to continue working. The question is: what can be changed over the next few years to jump-start the development agenda?
You can criticize Donald Trump all you want, but it would be more practical to focus on the EU, which doesn’t offer much consolation.
Given the geopolitical tensions, the weakening of global cooperation and, above all, the lack of appetite for a real union of efforts between EU Member States, each of them will have to contribute to the development of a European cooperation which will continue to be hybrid, incomplete and fragmented, but whoever will have an interest in continuing to look for formulas to work in a better concerted way, but all efforts Team Europe.
As I mentioned earlier, it would be a big mistake to pretend that it was just a “bad afternoon”. This would be an opportune moment to exorcise some of the well-intentioned and staid culture that has dominated much of development agency and cooperation policy for decades, and to integrate more efforts across three interconnected areas. The first is categorically to increase the capacity for financial mobilization and private investment. The second, a re-professionalization of the sector in which the optimization of knowledge and the application of technology promote notable advances in the effectiveness of results over an average period. Finally, let’s put an end to “so many alliances and synergies” and bet on strategies of integral government, where the resources, experience, strengths and capacities of a much larger universe of actors interact fluidly, to resize the cooperation sector, readapt it to a different context of rights and solutions and foster a renewed universe of possibilities.
Unfortunately, none of these three actions are the strength of our cooperation. Also in our public sector. Do I propose? Promote during 2026 the embryo of a Spain team: A process of reflection and debate that supports the positive inertia of Spain’s increasingly active role in multiple international forums, and which is capable of integrating in the medium term these three hands of the enormous wealth of actors that represent Spanish cooperation. I can think of no better way to build the foundations to face this storm which, I fear, has not yet presented its worst face.
About The Author
