Calling for Development Cooperation to Stand with Regional Governments in the Global South
Given that just three months later, in the same city of Seville (Spain), the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) is scheduled to take place, ORU Fogar sought to use the 6th World Forum on Local Economic Development held in this Andalusian city to draw attention to the chronic financing challenges faced by regional governments and to call for greater support from international cooperation. The World Forum took place from April 1 to 4, 2025, while FfD4 will be held from June 30 to July 3.
During the plenary session entitled “Territories and the FfD4 Agenda: Key Contributions for Fair Territorial Financing for Development,” Ahmed Youssouf Benjeloune, President of the Department of Kaolack, President of the Association of Departments of Senegal, and Vice President of ORU Fogar, expressed the regionalist perspective. He explained that regional governments are key players in implementing the 2030 Agenda. However, he emphasized that these governments often lack the financial, technical, and human resources needed to meet the challenges they face. He therefore called on international cooperation to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
A similarly strong intervention came from Jules Hilaire Focka, President of the West Region of Cameroon, who spoke in the session “Territorial Ecosystems for Development Financing: Proposals from Decentralized Cooperation.” “In the Global South,” he said, “we are acutely aware of the challenges posed by Climate Change in particular and environmental issues in general. We also clearly understand the need to protect nature. But to face these challenges, we need more than just cooperation. We need genuine collaboration—one that brings not only funding, but above all, technical support.” He ended his speech with a firm statement: “We hold many seminars and forums, but time keeps passing, and what we truly need is concrete and effective collaboration that places us in a win-win dynamic.”
Carles Llorens, Secretary General of ORU Fogar, participated in the session “Decentralized Cooperation for Local Economic Development, Employment, and New Economies: Best Practices and Future Prospects.” He began with the following remark: “It is paradoxical,” he said, “that not even decentralized cooperation is helping to strengthen regional governments in the Global South.” His statement was based on the “2023 Report on Decentralized Cooperation,” published for the second consecutive year by the Basque Agency for Development Cooperation. The report noted that cooperation from municipalities and regions reached $3.072 billion. It documented aid actions by thirty-eight specific subnational governments, with European regions prominently represented. In general, however, this cooperation is mostly channeled through NGOs and occasionally through central governments—but very rarely through direct region-to-region agreements.
Representatives of Spanish regional cooperation agencies present at the Forum were receptive to the concerns voiced by regions in the Global South and ORU Fogar. Javier Cortés, Director of the Basque Cooperation Agency, eLankidetza, already equipped with data from the 2024 Report on Decentralized Cooperation, showed a strong awareness of the importance of decentralized cooperation and the potential for partnerships with southern institutions. Isabel Belloso, Director of the Extremadura Agency for International Development Cooperation (AEXCID), advocated for cooperation that adapts to new social challenges and enables real change in partner territories. Celia Rosell, Director of the Andalusian Agency for International Development Cooperation (AACID), emphasized the importance of decentralized cooperation as a key tool for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), stressing the need for coordinated action between institutions and civil society to address global challenges.
ORU Fogar ensured that this position was included in the Forum Manifesto, which stated: “We call upon the international community, and especially those committed to development cooperation, to provide strong support to local and regional governments in the Global South as key agents in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, based on the conviction that only through decentralization and strict respect for the principle of subsidiarity can the 2030 Agenda be fulfilled.” This message is directed at all those who will participate in the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4).
