Victoria Tur Gómez, new director of the AECID

Eduardo González Victoria Tur Gómez will be the new director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) starting this Wednesday, July 1, replacing Antón Leis, who has been appointed Deputy High Commissioner for Operations at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). According to a press release from the Agency, the appointment was decided this Tuesday by the AECID Governing Council, which reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. Until now, Victoria Tur Gómez served as director of the Technical Office of this agency, which is responsible for promoting, planning, coordinating, and implementing Spain's international cooperation policy. A graduate in Law with a postgraduate degree in International Studies, Victoria Tur Gómez (Tarragona, 1981) joined the Diplomatic Service in 2007. Throughout her career, she has held various positions in the foreign service, including Deputy Head of Mission at the Spanish Embassies in Zimbabwe and Jamaica, and Counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Berlin. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, she has worked in the Office of the Secretary General for the European Union, in the Directorate General for International Economic Relations, and as Deputy Director General for Sub-Saharan Africa. Her career is closely linked to Spanish Cooperation. At the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), she headed the then Department of Cooperation with the Arab World and Asia—now the Sub-Directorate of Cooperation with the Arab World and Asia—and, until her appointment as Director of AECID, served as Director of the Agency's Technical Office. Tur Gómez replaces Antón Leis, who has been appointed Deputy High Commissioner for Operations at UNHCR with the direct support of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the Government of Spain. Antón Leis, from Galicia, served as Director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) since July 2021. During these almost five years, he witnessed firsthand the adoption of the new Law on Cooperation for Sustainable Development (in February 2023), which introduced, among its main innovations, the granting of legal force to Spain's commitment to allocate 0.7% of GDP to development aid and, in application of this same law, the creation of a new Statute for Development Workers and the approval of the new Statute of the AECID itself, finalized in December 2024.

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