A school rainwater cistern in northeast Brazil, built as part of 20.5 million Euro Spanish-funded programme. Photo: AECID
The total budget for the Spanish Water and Sanitation Cooperation Fund for Latin America and the Caribbean is forecast to be 15 million Euros compared to 150 million Euros in 2011, says Jaime del Rey Gómez-Morata, head of the fund at the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) [1].
As part of its austerity measures, Spain is cutting its development aid budget by 75%, which will include cancelling all non-emergency aid to Latin America in 2012. The remaining aid budget will be directed at countries in northern Africa, particularly those in transition to democracy plus countries in Western sub-Sahara and the Horn of Africa [2]. Between 2010 and 2011, Spain had already reduced its aid budget by 29.2% [3].
Spain pledged 1.2 billion Euros to the Water and Sanitation Cooperation Fund, which was set up in 2007 and began operations in 2009. Since then, the Fund has approved more than 700 million Euros in programmes that are still being implemented. On 15 June, the Spanish government announced it was allocating 5 million Euros from the Fund to consultants P4R to monitor and evaluate the programmes [4].
[1] Jaime del Rey Gómez-Morata, Personal email, 31 May 2012
[2] Spain, on the edge of a financial cliff, cancels all development aid to Latin America, MercoPress, 23 May 2012
[3] Spain’s Progress: 2004–11, ONE 2012 Data Report
[4] España asigna 5 millones a proyectos del Fondo del Agua para Latinoamérica, Lainformacion.com, 15 Jun 2012
Related news: Spanish Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation launches new web site, E-Source, 15 Jul 2011
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