The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday authorized several voluntary contributions from Spain to international organizations, programs, funds and other entities of an international nature, for an amount of 8,833,000 euros.
In execution of the mandate entrusted to it, and within its budgetary possibilities, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) has been regularly making voluntary contributions to various international organizations, programs, funds and other international entities.
The main contribution will be 2.5 million euros to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the department of the United Nations General Secretariat responsible for coordinating humanitarian actors in emergencies. This contribution has been a regular annual contribution in the planning of AECID’s Humanitarian Action Office for more than eleven years.
Spain will also contribute two million euros to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and another two million to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in both cases in fulfillment of the commitment made by Spain at the Donors’ Conference for Afghanistan on September 20, which announced a contribution of 20 million euros in the medium term, seven million euros of which will be disbursed this year 2021.
Apart from this, Spain will contribute one million euros to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to support the reconstruction of school infrastructures in Haiti – specifically in the Grand Sud – affected by the 2021 earthquake.
The list of voluntary contributions includes 700,000 euros to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), an agency to which Spain has contributed more than 127 million euros since 2001.
The remaining contributions are 303,000 euros to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 130,000 euros to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 100,000 euros to the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) and another 100,000 euros to the World Food Program (WFP).
