<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, chaired this Wednesday in Madrid the first constitutive meeting of the Sectoral Conference on Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Global Solidarity, a body for coordination, consultation, and collaboration in this area in which the General State Administration, the autonomous communities, and the autonomous cities participate.</strong></h4> The objective of the Sectoral Conference, launched pursuant to the 2023 Law on Cooperation for Sustainable Development and the Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation, is to improve the participation of decentralized cooperation in the development of new thematic strategies for Spanish Cooperation and in the planning of bilateral cooperation through the Partnership Frameworks and Alliances for Sustainable Development, "in the joint effort to achieve 0.7% of Gross National Income by 2030," according to the Ministry in a press release. During his speech, Albares emphasized "the importance of this Sectoral Conference for its explicit recognition of decentralized cooperation as a structural and structuring actor in Spanish Cooperation, taking a further step in the reform and modernization of our system." "Furthermore, it reaffirms our commitment to international cooperation for development and humanitarian action as one of the pillars of our new Foreign Action Strategy, based on our commitment to a more prosperous world, with less inequality and more rights," he added. Representatives of the 17 autonomous communities and the autonomous city of Ceuta participated in the meeting, held at the Ministry's headquarters in Marqués de Salamanca (Madrid), along with the State Secretary for International Cooperation, Eva Granados (who will chair the Sectoral Cooperation Commission), the Director General of Sustainable Development Policies, the Technical Secretary General of Foreign Affairs, the Director General of Regional and Local Cooperation of the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, and representatives of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) and the Confederation of Cooperation and Solidarity Funds (CONFOCOS). The first decisions of the new Sectoral Conference on Cooperation were made at the constitutive session. Among them, the appointment of the vice-presidency will be held by Basque cooperation, in compliance with the order of appointment established by seniority in the Statutes of Autonomy of the autonomous communities and cities. Furthermore, the internal operating regulations and the creation of working groups on the various cooperation modalities and instruments, as well as for the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of Spanish cooperation as a whole, were unanimously approved.
