Spain

The report also includes the recommendations made by the High Level Advisory Group for Feminist Foreign Policy, made up of several government ministries, international organisations, civil society organisations, knowledge centres and the private business sector: greater budget allocation; gender focus in all external action; greater participation of Embassies in joint actions with governments and local organisations; improved communication on feminist foreign policy, with special attention to youth; greater involvement of public authorities to consolidate it as a state policy; and mandatory training for the intersectional and cross-cutting approach to gender equality.

In July 2024, the Government approved the Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation for the years 2024-2027, which contains the objectives and priorities that will guide the actions of international cooperation for sustainable development in the coming years. The new plan focuses its vision on the role of international cooperation to achieve a triple just transition (social, ecological and economic) and to comply with the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is also committed to a series of principles that cut across all Spanish Development Cooperation actions, which includes human rights, and a feminist approach and gender equality, among others. The Master Plan states that “it will be essential to work towards the fulfilment of sexual and reproductive health and rights” in line with the Cairo Programme of Action and SDGs 3 and 5 of the 2030 Agenda.

The Cooperation Master Plan is one of the first milestones in the deployment of the new Law on Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity, approved in February 2023, which gives legal status to Spain’s commitment to allocate 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) to Official Development Assistance (ODA) by 2030. However, the latest data from the OECD DAC and the EU put the funds that Spain allocates to cooperation at 0.24 per cent of GNI in 2023, a far cry from the budget commitment made to reach 0.34% this year. The reduction represents a drop of some 694 million Euros (750 million USD) in absolute figures compared to the previous year.

 
At the moment of writing, the General State Budget proposal is expected to come out and it represents an opportunity to resume the path of growth in funds allocated to development cooperation. In this regard, the Spanish Development NGO Platform has proposed some key measures to comply with the new Cooperation Law and respond responsibly to global challenges, which include: to increase ODA by 1.5 billion Euros to represent 0.4% of GNI, and as a necessary step to reach 0.55% by the end of the legislature (2027) and 0.7% by 2030; increase the funds allocated to the AECID, the development agency; commit to feminist cooperation, creating a specific office, allocating 30% of AECID funds to promote the rights of women and girls, including SRHR and mainstreaming a feminist approach in all ODA, and considering that a new feminist cooperation strategy is being drafted; and commit to a transformative multilateralism by increasing the contributions made by other ministries and departments.

 
In 2025, Spain will host the IV Conference on Financing for Development; this will also be a good opportunity give an unequivocal signal to be coherent with the country’s speeches and comply with the law.

 
In relation to the funding dedicated to SRHR, in 2023, Spanish contributions to UNFPA benefitting SRHR achieved almost 15 million Euros, of which 12 million were for SRH/FP. The country responded to SRH needs through programmes that included strengthening health systems for access to family planning; responding to GBV; pursuing the elimination of harmful practices such as child marriage and FGM; and advocating in the area of gender equality. Support to the UNFPA thematic fund for humanitarian emergencies amounted to 600.000 Euros, in addition to 2.75 million Euros dedicated to Afghanistan and Ukraine. The amount of core funding to UNFPA was 750.000 Euros, the triple of 2022.

Regions contributed to this support. Part of the Spanish SRH/FP spending in 2023 included the Basque Country Government’s contributions to the ‘We decide Joint programme on Gender Base Violence’ and the UNFPA Supplies Partnership, which is the result of the continued parliamentary advocacy work of SEDRA-FPFE through the APPG at regional level. The government of Catalonia has also supported UNFPA’s programme ‘Scaling up Gender Based Violence Prevention, Risk Mitigation and Referral Systems for Service Delivery in Libia’, the ‘Response with the aim of improving the reproductive health of girls and women and eliminating GBV and FGM through impactful innovative approaches in Senegal’, and a programme based on ‘Community Response to Combat Gender Based Violence among Women and Girls in East Jerusalem’.

It is also important to highlight the work in the LAC region, centred in regional interventions and in addressing the Venezuelan crisis with support to Colombia and Venezuela, in addition to Spain’s leadership in ensuring disability rights and inclusion is commendable. This leadership extends to the long-standing support to the We Decide Programme. Through this programme, over the past seven years of operation, UNFPA has been able to make disability inclusion work more systematic and human rights-based. Moreover, Spain’s support to UNFPA’s humanitarian response has been critical to ensure support for Ukraine, Afghanistan, Palestine and the Humanitarian Thematic Fund. Economic empowerment, addressing gender-based violence, and access to services are among the issues supported by investments in Ethiopia, Ukraine, Jordan, Morocco and Mali.

Total contributions to UNFPA are expected to increase from 12 million Euros (13 million USD) in 2023 to over 16 million Euros in 2024, as announced by Spain’s Secretary of State for Development Cooperation during the co-hosted UNGA event, “Investing in the Future: Unlocking Sustainable Financing for Sexual and Reproductive Health”. This includes core contributions amounting to 5 million Euros, which is an increase of 567% compared to 2023, and a surge of 43% for the multi-year support to UNFPA Supplies Partnership.