Eduardo González Yesterday the Council of Ministers approved a package of voluntary contributions to various international organizations for a total amount of almost twenty million euros, the vast majority for the United Nations. With this aid, as stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release, “Spain's commitment to multilateralism, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Development Financing Agenda” is reaffirmed. These contributions are directed to various United Nations agencies, the European Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) and the World Bank, and add up to a total amount of 19,125,000 euros for the financial year 2024. The contributions to the United Nations, which total 17.5 million euros, reflect “the priorities of Spanish foreign policy in terms of cooperation and reinforce the strategic relationship of Spanish Cooperation with each of these funds, organizations and programs of the UN and its objectives,” continued the Department headed by José Manuel Albares. Specifically, contributions include five million euros to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the objective of supporting “sexual and reproductive rights, universal access to health services for the effective exercise of said rights and the fight against gender violence,” highlighted the Ministry. Likewise, another five million will be allocated to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). “Spain is firmly committed to eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, strengthening democratic governance and promoting inclusive and sustainable human development,” it continued. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) will receive another five million euros to “support the protection of children's rights, the reduction of child mortality, the promotion of child education and health, equality between girls and boys and the prevention of all types of abuse and violence against them,” it added. The rest of the contributions to the UN, 2.5 million euros, will go to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) with the objective of “aimed at promoting gender equality.” gender and the empowerment of women, as well as to prevent and combat gender violence.” OECD and World Bank Apart from the United Nations, the Council of Ministers approved a voluntary contribution of 625,000 euros to the OECD broken down into several items: a part will go to the Development Assistance Committee, to fight against poverty and inequalities, support fragile states and promote triangular cooperation and the evaluation of public development policies. Another part will be for the Development Center, to promote innovation programs, the construction of inclusive societies and regional studies of sustainable development. Finally, the third part will go to the Taxation and Development program, to advance tax justice in developing countries. Finally, Spain will contribute one million euros to the Rapid Social Response Program for Adaptive and Dynamic Social Protection of the World Bank for the financial year 2024, as part of the contributions of Spanish Cooperation to the development financing agenda for the IV International Conference that will take place in Spain in July 2025.
