The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers approved last Tuesday the Minutes of the third meeting of the Spanish-Ethiopian Joint Commission for Cooperation, adopting the Spain-Ethiopia Country Partnership Framework (MAP, for its acronym in Spanish) for the period 2022-2027.
The Country Partnership Frameworks are the strategic and geographic planning instruments of the Spanish Cooperation. Their main objective is to have a coherent, global and shared vision with the partner country on human development and the fight against poverty, supporting partner countries for their sustainable development within the framework of the 2030 Agenda.
The Ethiopia-Spain MAP 2022-2027 was approved by the III Joint Spanish-Ethiopian Cooperation Commission, held in Addis Abeba on February 16, 2023, and was signed on the same day by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, during his official visit to Addis Ababa, where he also inaugurated the first Spanish Cooperation Office.
The MAP with Ethiopia, the first agreement of its kind since the approval of the new Law on Cooperation for Sustainable Development and Global Security, updates the work of the Spanish Cooperation with Ethiopia until 2027 and foresees to allocate, initially, 44 million euros to sectors such as rural development, health and gender equality. Apart from that, the new framework foresees a 15% increase in the financial commitment compared to the previous MAP 2015-2021.
With the signing of this MAP, Spain and Ethiopia are committed to the fulfillment of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the agendas derived from the SDGs and the Paris Agreement, which are of particular importance for both countries and which, in the case of Spanish Cooperation, are the basis of the V Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation. “Specifically, Spanish Cooperation is committed to contributing to the achievement of different SDG Goals and Action Lines in Ethiopia, within the framework of the five dimensions of the 2030 Agenda: People, Prosperity, Planet, Partnerships and Peace,” the Executive stated.
The Country Partnership Framework Ethiopia-Spain 2022-2027 concentrates the efforts of the Spanish Cooperation around three development objectives: contributing to universal health coverage by supporting the Health Sector Transformation Plan in Ethiopia; strengthening resilient and inclusive rural development, fostering economic growth and resilience of the populations most vulnerable to climate change; and boosting gender equality in Ethiopia, strengthening women’s participation in all areas of public life and the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence.
In addition, Spanish Cooperation in Ethiopia will adopt initiatives aimed at strengthening public policies at the national level and will promote research, development and innovation (R&D&I), university cooperation and pilot projects at the regional or sub-regional level, especially in the Oromia, Somali and Afar regions.
In the last year of MAP implementation, an external evaluation will be carried out, with a special focus on time and form for the preparation of the next MAP. This evaluation will focus on the analysis of the degree of achievement of the intermediate results of the Spanish Cooperation and on the examination of the internal and external aspects that have influenced the achievement or non-achievement of the MAP forecasts.
