Elcano will receive 100,000 euros to prepare the Government’s position at the Financing Summit in Seville

Eduardo González Last Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved the direct granting of subsidies to five entities for international cooperation for sustainable development, among which the Elcano Royal Institute stands out, which will receive 100,000 euros to participate in the preparation of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Sustainable Development, which will take place in Seville in July 2025. According to the Royal Decree, published this Wednesday by the Official State Gazette (BOE), these subsidies are part of the Strategic Subsidy Plan 2024-2026 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since there is no separate budget for the 2024 financial year, but rather an extension for 2024 of the General State Budget (PGE) in force in 2023, they have been processed as direct grant subsidies through this royal decree. As established by the General Subsidies Law of 2003, those subsidies may be granted directly and exceptionally if reasons of public, social, economic or humanitarian interest are accredited, or other duly justified reasons that make their public call difficult. To do so, they must be approved by Royal Decree, at the proposal of the competent minister (in this case, José Manuel Albares, of Foreign Affairs) and after a report from the Ministry of Finance, presented during the last Council of Ministers. According to the BOE, this procedure has approved “five grants to institutions identified as singular partners of the State Secretariat for International Cooperation (SECI)”, the highest body of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs directly responsible for the planning and execution of the Government's action in the field of cooperation policy for sustainable development and which is in charge of the political direction of cooperation for sustainable development of the General Administration of the State and dependent bodies. The list of beneficiaries includes the Elcano Royal Institute, which will receive 100,000 euros in two annual instalments (86,000 in 2024 and 14,000 in 2025) to finance its activities for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Sustainable Development. Specifically, the purpose of the grant will be to organize meetings of academic experts to formulate Spain's position at the aforementioned Financing Conference. Seville will host, between June 30 and July 3, 2025, the IV International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), which will set as its main objective the mobilization of funds for Agenda 2030. The first three conferences were held in Monterrey in 2002, in Doha in 2008 and in Addis Ababa in 2015. Precisely, the same Council of Ministers authorized this Tuesday the modification of the current limits of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to acquire budgetary spending commitments, in order to enable the organization of the International Conference. Other grants The grant package includes another 100,000 euros to the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), the association that brings together almost all Spanish municipalities, for the co-financing of various activities linked to international cooperation for sustainable development, to the improvement of the reporting of Official Development Assistance (ODA) of Spanish local entities, to the development of training and awareness-raising activities and to the development of relevant publications within the scope of collaboration. For its part, the Confederation of Cooperation and Solidarity Funds (CONFOCOS), which brings together the only network of municipal solidarity funds that exist in several autonomous communities in Spain, will receive 90,000 euros (21,000 in 2024 and 69,000 in 2025) for the strengthening of decentralized municipal cooperation, through the co-financing of a meeting of local governments in Spain and participation in an international forum (World Forum for Local Economic Development). Likewise, CRUE Spanish Universities, a non-profit association made up of a total of 77 Spanish universities (50 public and 27 private) and which acts as the main interlocutor between universities and the government, will receive 30,000 euros (8,000 in 2024 and 22,000 in 2025) for the implementation of two main activities related to university cooperation in Spain. Finally, the Spanish Network for Sustainable Development (REDS), created in 2015 as the Spanish section of the global network of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) of the United Nations in our country and which brings together universities, public administrations, companies and civil society with the mission of supporting the dissemination and implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in Spain, will receive another 30,000 euros (24,000 in 2024 and 6,000 in 2025) for the realization of multi-stakeholder activities and meetings aimed at preparing for the IV Summit on Financing for Sustainable Development and the launching of actions to disseminate the SDGs.

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