Development cooperation

The general objective of the working group is to promote ORU-Fogar's participation and advocacy in global debates on development cooperation, while promoting initiatives aimed at improving the quality of development cooperation among its member regions and organisations, with special emphasis on the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Development Cooperation Working Group contributes to the 2030 Agenda by sharing good practices on how development cooperation contributes to the SDGs. In particular, the focus is on SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals), which includes key issues such as new forms of financing, policy coherence for development, new technologies, technical capacity building, improved use of data or evaluation and accountability.

WORKING AREAS

1. The Global Debate on Development Cooperation: Effectiveness and Results

The WG organises ORU-Fogar's participation in the relevant spaces of the international de-bate on development cooperation, specifically in the Global Partnership for Effective Devel-opment Cooperation, and in other international forums of global scope.

The year 2023 will be marked by new work streams in the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, which held its VI High-Level Meeting in Geneva in December 2022. Together with the organisation of United Cities and Local Governments, co-representative of territorial governments in the Global Partnership, ORU-Fogar will partici-pate in the reflection on the new orientation and activities of the Global Partnership, based on the priorities adopted in its Geneva Declaration. ORU-Fogar had contributed to the de-bate with its document "The commitment of the regions to the Summit for Development Cooperation Effectiveness".

In 2023, the convening of the United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (UNDCF) in March of this year also stands out. The UNCDF is a global platform for debate on the chal-lenges of cooperation and its results, and the 2023 edition is based on the Report of the Sec-retary-General "Trends and Progress in International Development Cooperation" (E/2023/48).

2. Data and decentralised cooperation

With the support of the European PLATFORMA programme, the Catalan government and the WG are promoting an initiative to improve the collection of data on development coopera-tion at the sub-state level. The objective is to to improve access to information in this area in order to understand more about decentralised cooperation and its contribution to sustaina-ble development, and to identify areas for improvement and synergies with other actors. In 2023, consultancy work will be developed, aiming at the formulation of a broader project, in which the visions and interests of the different actors involved in this domain will converge.

The WG will maintain dialogue with various actors (Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD; interested national and sub-state governments; and platforms such as IATI, Data4SDGs o Paris21), and will also participate in different relevant spaces and meetings.

3. Cooperation with the European Union

In 2023, new efforts will be made to facilitate the participation, monitoring and access of ORU-Fogar regions to European development cooperation programmes, through the activi-ties of the Policy Forum on Development (PfD), of which we are members, in addition to those of the PLATFORMA project. This year, the EU-Latin America Heads of State and Gov-ernment Meeting will be held in Brussels on 17 and 18 July, which will be the subject of pre-paratory meetings by the PfD.

4. Training and dissemination of practical tools and methodologies

After the course on Territorial Strategic Planning 2022, the objective for this year is to carry out a new training activity to offer to our partners, in this case on Territorial Internationalisa-tion. The dissemination of works, documents and practical tools on cooperation, develop-ment and especially Agenda 2030 and SDGs will also take place.

WORKING GROUP MANAGEMENT

In order to further develop the established themes and to achieve the stated objectives, a set of tools is employed in order to strengthen the Working Group, establish connections and work in an ever closer collaboration :

· Use of a mailing list to disseminate information and share experiences and knowledge.

· Participation in the different sections of ORU-Fogar's newsletters.

· Consultation with the members of the working group and bringing them together in the different ORU-Fogar meetings.

· Information exchange between members through ORU-Fogar's channels (e-mails, newsletters, etc.).

2023 AGENDA

January 31. ECOSOC Partnerships Forum

February 21-25. Global Taskforce - UCLG Retreat (Barcelona)

March 7. ORU Bureau (Eastern Region, Morocco)

14-15. UN Development Cooperation Forum 2023 (New York)

22. Paris 21 - Going local to leave no one behind: The role of subnational data (Basel)

23-24. Platforma Political Council (Brussels)

April 24-27. UN Data Forum 2023 (Hangzhou, China)