The Diplomat
On Monday, the Council of Ministers authorized two voluntary contributions from Spain to alleviate the global food and energy crisis and to promote the role of medium-sized cities in the Sustainable Development Goals.
On the one hand, Spain will make a voluntary contribution of 750,000 euros to the Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in fiscal year 2023.
The Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance is a 32-member group chaired by UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and includes heads of UN agencies, development banks and other international organizations. The group was established by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on March 14, 2022 to respond to the potential consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the Response Group does not have its own institutional structure, the voluntary contribution should be channeled through UNCTAD, a United Nations entity created in 1964 to develop coordinated solutions to interrelated crises (food, energy and finance) in collaboration with governments, international financial institutions and other key partners to help the most vulnerable countries avoid a full-scale crisis. UNCTAD is the main organ of the UN General Assembly. Its current secretary general is, as of June 2021, Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, former Ibero-American secretary general (SEGIB). The deputy secretary general is the Spaniard Pedro Manuel Moreno, as of November 2022.
Spain will also make another voluntary contribution of 750,000 euros to the Platform for the Localization of SDGs and G20 Intermediary Cities (PLIC) in 2023. The Platform was created by the Italian G20 Presidency in November 2021 to boost the potential of intermediary cities in regional and national development and, therefore, in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the local level. Bilbao is the headquarters of Local 2030, the UN agency in charge of coordinating the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the levels closest to the citizen.
