The Diplomat
The State Secretary for International Cooperation (SECI), Pilar Cancela, concluded on Saturday her first trip to continental Africa, during which she visited Mauritania and Senegal, priority countries for Spanish Cooperation for more than 30 years.
During the official visit, Pilar Cancela had an intense institutional agenda and met with authorities from different areas, such as Foreign Affairs, Economy, Agriculture, Health and Culture, to whom she reiterated Spain’s commitment to maintain its cooperation in these countries.
In addition, the State Secretary had the opportunity to learn about Spanish Cooperation projects developed through the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Public Administration and Policy (FIIAPP).
Over the course of a week, according to a note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cancela visited Spanish Cooperation programmes that promote development in the following areas: modernisation of agriculture and rural development, which involves improving food security, creating rural employment and supporting productive sectors; environment and climate change (water, energy and waste management); health, through support for public health systems and the training of medical specialists, as well as attention to women and children; migration, institutional strengthening and governance; and the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality.
Among the priority sectors for Spanish Development Cooperation, one is health. During a visit to the special unit for victims of gender-based violence at the Mother and Child Hospital Centre in Nouakchott, Cancela explained that “it is essential to support universal access to health, especially for victims of gender-based violence”.
Another of the sectors she met was food security and rural development. In this regard, the State Secretary visited the peri-urban vegetable garden project in Nouakchott, which she defined as “a demonstration of Spanish Cooperation’s commitment to food security and rural development, paying special attention to the economic empowerment of women”.
Education was also an important part of the agenda in Mauritania, with an extensive visit to the University of Nouakchott. The role of universities in society encompasses much more than their traditional functions of teaching and research, the university has a third mission related to innovation, knowledge transfer and social change. At the Faculty of Legal Sciences of the University of Nouakchott, the State Secretary visited the Gender Observatory, where she stressed that “if there is a sign of identity of Spanish Cooperation in the world, it is precisely the fight for equality”.
The visit to Senegal focused on the 9th World Water Forum, the most important event in the sector, which is a space in which the international community can collaborate and make decisions to address global water challenges.
In Senegal, in addition to holding meetings with leading figures and NGDOs in the sector, Pilar Cancela participated in two panels on the human rights to water and sanitation and partnerships, and attended a high-level round table on cooperation. In this framework, she also met with the World Bank’s Director of Global Water Practice, Jennifer Sara, to explore new ways of collaboration in water and sanitation.
In addition, Pilar Cancela visited the headquarters of the Cervantes Institute in Dakar, the first in Sub-Saharan Africa, where she held a meeting with some of the staff of the Technical Cooperation Office and representatives of NGDOs present in the country.
The Spanish delegation also travelled to the department of Bignona, where it visited an agricultural project that promotes gender equality and fosters a production system that generates economic, sustainable and green value. Also in this region, the SECI attended the inauguration of a Migrant Reception, Orientation and Follow-up Office (BAOS), a network of reception and orientation mechanisms for migrants that represents a major step forward in the management of Senegalese migration policy and its decentralisation.
In conclusion, Cancela reaffirmed that the Sahel is a priority region for Spanish Cooperation, which was already reflected in the Fifth Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation (2018-2021), including four Sahelian countries as priorities for bilateral cooperation (Niger, Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal), which is also included in the Preliminary Cooperation Bill.
