The Diplomat
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) will allocate up to 45 million euros to finance development cooperation projects of Non-Governmental Development Organizations (NGDOs) in 2023.
The beneficiaries of these grants, as published yesterday in the Official State Gazette (BOE), will be NGDOs that have been legally constituted at least five years prior to the publication of this call and are registered in the Registry of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, as well as groups of NGDOs without legal personality, provided that each of its members meets the requirements.
Through this call – signed on May 5 by the director of the AECID, Antón Leis, development projects in a single country, projects for development education and global citizenship and for the promotion of fair trade and projects aimed at meeting the needs of the Sahrawi refugee population in Tindouf (Algeria) and that are part of the Humanitarian Strategy 2022-2023 of the AECID for this context will be subsidized.
The total amount will be a maximum of 45 million, coming mostly from the collection of personal income tax, which represents an increase of 40% over the 32 million euros of last year’s call. In addition, the maximum amount that can be financed per project will be one million euros in general, compared to 600,000 euros the previous year.
The incorporation of Lebanon and Guinea Bissau to the list of target countries -up to a total of 28- in the call for NGDO projects is another of the novelties of the current fiscal year, together with the increase, from 4% in 2022 to 6% in 2023, of the reserve for the line of Projects for Education for Development and Global Citizenship (EpD-GC) and for the promotion of fair trade.
In the 2022 call for proposals, almost 32 million euros were awarded – four million more than in the 2021 call for proposals – in grants to 68 NGDOs for the financing of 88 development cooperation projects related, above all, to gender equality, food security and education. Three projects addressing the needs of the Saharawi refugee population in Tindouf for an amount of 1.27 million euros were included among the subsidized proposals.
Specifically, more than a dozen organizations received at least one grant of 600,000 euros: Ayuda en Acción, Fundación Mujeres, Arquitectura sin Fronteras, Fundación Mundubat, Oxfam Intermón (two grants of 600,000 euros), Spanish Red Cross (two grants), Fundación Educación y Cooperación (EDUCO), Médicos del Mundo, Centro de Estudios Rurales y de Agricultura Internacional, Justicia Alimentaria, Fundación Ojos del Mundo, Federación de Asociaciones Medicus Mundi en España (FAMME) and Asociación Internacional de Ingeniería Sin Fronteras.
