EL BLOG DE LA FIIAPP. Cooperación Española

In January of 2012, just after I had started in my position as Director-General of Policies Supporting Persons with Disabilities, I encountered the launch of this project in Tunisia. From the first moment, it seemed like an opportunity for growth and expansion for both the professionals of the Directorate-General and myself. Managing to situate disability policies in the context of the first of the Arab Spring revolutions was a great challenge.

In the course of these nearly 28 months, Spain has contributed its over 30 years of experience in the development of a disability support system that has given us one of thehighest rates in Europe of inclusive education for children with disabilities, a model of occupational integration that, even in times of crisis like these, has not only maintained employment of this group but actually increased it. Above all, Spain contributed the dynamism and organizational capacity of a civil society that, through the CERMI and the ONCE Foundation, has made disability one of the most important and influential associative sectors with the closest collaboration with the Administration and State institutions in general.

So I believe that this project has enabled us to expand the influence of the Spain brand in the social context, something that also says a lot about us as a country and as a caring and committed society.

In my opinion, this project has allowed Tunisia to progress along a path started some time ago, but which is at the same time based on a focus on the rights of persons with disabilities and, for the first time, oriented towards strategic planning and coordination.

It should be remembered that Tunisia has been creating disability policies for some time; in fact, it has a law on attention to disability dating back to the 80s, similar to our old LISMI. In addition, Tunisia was one of the first countries to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and was the first to voluntarily undergo examination by the monitoring committee for this international treaty. On the other hand, Tunisia has quite an extensive network of assistance and, certainly, is exceptional in terms of its geographic region.

I believe that, in the first place, this project has allowed Tunisia to advance in an approach based on rights and the autonomy of persons with disabilities. In the second place, it has allowed it to take a step forward in its disability support system and start working on the issue of quality, planning and priorities. One example of these two dimensions can be found in the pilot projects carried out in schools and special education centres, promoting a truly inclusive education and providing possibilities for making equal opportunities for children with disabilities a concrete reality.

Lastly, I believe this project reached Tunisia at an excellent moment, just after the Revolution and the establishment of a democratic regime, as in this context it was possible to promote the collaboration between the State and civil society, between the administration and associations, and between the State and companies, in an environment of freedom. One example of this can be found in the activities for occupational integration we carried out which led to several agreements between the Tunisian employment service (ANETI) and various companies.

This project, besides collaborating in the reforms of disability policies being undertaken by Tunisia, has also had a direct impact on citizens, an aspect we were very careful with in order to increase visibility and support and commitment on the ground. Therefore, in addition to the pilot projects in the La Manouba province mentioned previously, which allowed us to work with 10 educational centres, there was field work with associations, companies and persons with disabilities which made it possible to guarantee employment to dozens of persons with disabilities in the private sector in six different regions. This, along with the holding of the first two recruitment drives for persons with disabilities, has changed the situation and job perspectives of persons with disabilities in Tunisia.

Undoubtedly there is still much to be done, but this project was another step on a road that is a great challenge for all countries and in which we have much to contribute and learn.

EUROsociAL, supported by one of its partners, the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), promoted the creation of assistance centres that address the need to bring the State closer to groups at risk for exclusion to enable them to overcome the physical and bureaucratic barriers that separate them from institutions. Each “House of Rights” is focused on helping a particular group and serves as an example and engine for extending protection and creating new centres in the host countries and the rest of Latin America.

The “Cidade de Deus House of Rights” in Río de Janeiro, Brazil is bringing justice, law, services and legal orientation to the residents of Cidade de Deus, one of the roughest favelas, which up until recently was inaccessible to the Brazilian State. Expediting the necessary permits to start a business and the processing of basic documents for gaining access to justice are some of the operations that the residents of Cidade de Deus were unable to carry out before the creation of the “House of Rights”.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras welcomes the first “Centre for Assistance and the Protection of Women’s Rights”, which was made possible thanks to the collaboration between EUROsociAL and the Honduran Judiciary, with the support of IDLO and France Expertise Internationale. The Centre promotes access to law and brings justice to women who are victims of gender-based violence. One of the reasons for centralizing assistance to this group is to keep the dispersion of the victims, in the absence of counselling and protection, from generating vulnerability which might subject them to gender-based violence again.

The border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua was the site chosen for the “House of Rights for Women”. The Centre, located in Upala, Costa Rica, offers protection and legal orientation to Nicaraguan migrant women. This group is especially vulnerable and, thanks to the legal safety it now enjoys, these women can emerge from a situation of vulnerability and lack of legal protection.

A person who cannot obtain documents because of the difficulty of carrying out legal procedures is vulnerable. This is why the aforementioned cases are examples of how bringing the administration and legal protection closer to citizens can improve their quality of life.

2014 is a special year in the world of organ transplants in Spain. This year we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Catalan Transplant Organization (OCATT), a body under the umbrella of the Department of Health which in 1984 started organ exchange, both among hospitals in Spanish territory and between the Spanish State and the rest of Europe.  This was possible thanks to the Transplant Coordination Centre, which operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Five years later, in 1989, the National Transplant Organization (ONT) was born. Currently, the ONT is responsible for coordinating the exchange of organs within Spanish territory, while the OCATT coordinates the exchange within Catalonia and between the State and international organizations.

What is known as the Spanish Transplant Model is a system made up of hospital transplant coordination offices, coordinators in the self-governing communities, the OCATT and the ONT. The model aims to improve organ and tissue donation, as well as transplants. To do this, it has an appropriate basic framework from a legal, ethic, medical and political standpoint. This model has been exported and adapted by many countries, both in the European Union and outside it. In fact, the European Directive on Organs, published in 2010, is based on the earlier Spanish regulation.

The proof that this model works is the new transplant record broken on the 20th of February which allowed 45 transplants to be performed in a single day. This was possible thanks to the solidarity of the 14 families of the deceased donors and that of 2 living donors, in addition to the participation of 22 hospitals in 11 self-governing communities, under the coordination of the OCATT and the ONT.

This collaboration between different Spanish institutions linked to donation and transplants also occurs at the international level. One example is the twinning project initiated in Moldova in January of this year which will end in December 2015. This is a project financed by the European Union and implemented by France and Spain. The main objectives are, in the first place, to review the legal and institutional framework related to organ and tissue donation and transplants to adapt it to European Directives.

The second objective is to train the Moldovan professionals involved in these activities. To do this, specialists from Spain, France and Romania will travel to Moldova to provide on-site training to these professionals and provide them with the theoretical bases. Later, the Moldovan professionals will travel to the Spanish, French and Romanian hospitals participating in the project to continue their training on a practical basis.

The aim of the final project phase is to improve public opinion in the area of organ and tissue donation and transplants, both in the general population and among professionals. The institutions leading the project are the Agence de la Biomédicine on the French side, and the Catalan Transplant Organization (OCATT) and the Donation and Transplant Institute (DTI) on the Spanish side. As the French intermediary agency, the Agency for Development and Coordination of International Relations (ADECRI) is participating. On the Spanish side, the intermediary agency is the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP), reporting to the Ministry of Public Administrations. Experts from Spain, France and Romania are also participating.

Dr Jaume Tort i Bardolet
Director of the OCATT

EUROsociAL has become the flagship programme of the European Union in Latin America for social cohesion. Under the motto “Supporting policies, connecting institutions” it brings together decision-makers and high-level public servants from European and Latin American public administrations to take part in exchanging concrete reform proposals in their respective domains.

Despite its positive development over the last decade, Latin America still faces challenges in overcoming social inequality. EUROsociAL aims to support, Latin American countries in the reform of their social policies in areas like health, education, tax systems, regional development, justice, transparency and employment.

One of the particular strengths of EUROsociAL (as highlighted by independent auditors in the recent mid-term evaluation), is the way it combines high level political dialogue with concrete work on reform proposals. Thanks to its innovative approach, EUROsociAL manages to produce measurable outputs and results, despite having relatively small resources per country.

To mention just a few key examples from 2013, EUROsociAL supported  the reform of the labour information system in Colombia that will allow to match labour market demand and supply, the introduction of a new law for handicapped people in Honduras and a new plan on fiscal education in Brazil. Moreover, it fostered many regional initiatives in Latin America, be it on tax administration, regional development, justice or social and economic dialogue.

EUROsociAL is an emblematic programme that shows how the European Union continues to forge close ties with Latin America, in order to bring about equitable and inclusive development. By targeting social inequality in the region, it helps to make a difference in people’s everyday lives, and create opportunities for jobs and growth across Latin America.

Article published in “Encuentros”, the EUROsociAL magazine.

21st of January 2014, 8:30 p.m., Terminal 3 of Cairo International Airport. In the midst of a swarm of taxi offers (legal and otherwise), we glimpsed a handwritten sign with our names on it at the exit to the terminal. The pleasant Egyptian man holding it up quickly ushered us into an SUV to take us to our hotel. While we wove through the crowds of cars, people and obstacles crossing the streets of an overwhelming and chaotic city, we got down to pumping him for the very latest information: whether or not the United States would provide financial aid, what had happened with the Muslim Brotherhood, with Mohamed Mursi, where Safuat el Hegazy was, and his opinion of Mohamed El Baradei, as well as of the provisional government formed after the demonstrations of June 2013.

The man, eager to make his opinion known to foreigners like us, patiently answered our questions one by one, impassive in his expression and emphatic in his statements. Only two questions disquieted him: explaining how the poorest population was suffering the worst consequences of the political situation, and how tourism was shut down in the city. For this reason, many families are seeing their subsistence options wrecked. Clearly, consumption is collapsing, and with it the way of life of 12.5% of the population of a country with over 80 million people, according to World Bank data from 2012, whose income represents 11% of Egypt’s GDP.

Today, the 15th of March 2014, is International Consumer Rights Day. Frankly, I have to admit that until a few years ago, I had no idea of its existence or the specific origin of the celebration, which it seems lies in a speech by the late President Kennedy before the United States Congress in 1963.

I’m not in the dark anymore. Fifty-one years after that speech and after two years of work in Egypt, the Egyptian Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), a young institution created in 2007, is pulling out all the stops to celebrate it today to make itself visible, to be heard over the political tumult of the country.
At an event in the Conrad Hotel in Cairo, hosted by the Minister of International Cooperation and Planning, Dr. Ashaf El Arabi, and the Minister of Supply and Internal Trade, Dr. Khaled Hanafy, the results of the cooperation project “Strengthening the consumer protection network and improvement of the capacities of the Consumer Protection Agency” are being presented. Executed by a consortium made up of the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry and the General Directorate of Consumption of Castilla-La Mancha, management of the project was led by the FIIAPP jointly with other European agencies. Financed by the European Commission, the main objective of the project was to help the CPA, as the leading national authority, strengthen its basic action functions, as well as to cover the effective framework of consumer protection.

As a result of this project, no one doubts the improvement of the regulatory and legislative framework, the skills learned by the protection agency itself, the collaboration with the NGOs in this field and the creation of awareness campaigns for consumers, merchants and other interested parties. Even so, there is still much left to be done in a situation of political instability, pressing structural reforms and problems generating economic resources, and so this is just a spur to continue collaborating with the Egyptian authorities.

These small steps will make it so that the titanic work of an institution like the CPA, which, apart from resources, lacks nothing in the way of enthusiasm or effort, endures and keeps working to improve the dynamic culture between producers, merchants and consumers to enhance all sectors of the Egyptian economy, from agriculture to industry and tourism. As Atef Amin Yacoub, Director of the Egyptian Agency told me, any help will be welcome and making itself known is a good start. May it last.

The 15th of March, International Consumer Rights Day, is the closing date of a cooperation project between Egypt and a consortium made up of Spain, Germany and France for consumer protection in this North African country: “Strengthening of the consumer protection network and improvement of the capacities of the Consumer Protection Agency”. The FIIAPP has participated in the management of the project since its creation in 2012, in which progress has been achieved in Egyptian society through consumption with guarantees.

Lack of protection, safety and control were some of the habitual problems Egyptian consumers faced on a daily basis. The Egyptian government sought to put an end to this situation in 2006, the year it passed the first consumer protection law. This law brought the creation of the first Consumer Protection Agency (CPA)a year later. Based on this project, all of these initiatives have been strengthened.

If something is to be highlighted in this cooperation, it is the ability shown by the institutions to achieve success starting from such different cultures, indicates Alejandro Salcedo, Spanish director of the project: “The added value of a pluralistic approach is worth highlighting, such as that provided from Germany, France and Spain with different organizational systems, but which made it possible to establish synergies and, especially, offered an opportunity for best practices in each of them according to activity and management areas”.

The Egyptians saw how their lives improved with quality, more hygienic and wholesome products, and they’ve managed to change the image of their products, which is very important if we take into account that tourism is one of the principal economic engines of the country.

Looking ahead to the future

The activity of FIIAPP is evident in education, the market, healthcare, tourism, industry and law, as it creates a domino effect that extends the advances in consumer protection to all areas. Greater protection generates greater safety, trust and modernization. The Spanish project leader indicates that these benefits are not temporary but rather were designed to last over time, and that it will be possible to extend them to other countries. “The enhancement of the exchange of experiences and the establishment of cooperation channels between the participating countries can give the project results future sustainability”, he points out.

These advances are visible at all levels, as they improve the functioning of institutions and strengthen the image of Egypt in the world, in addition to strengthening the bonds between Egypt and the European Union. “It is foreseeable that as trading levels with Egypt increase, a convergent approach will be required in the area of consumer protection, and that this, in turn, can be extended to other African countries in the region, fostering the creation of denser, more complex trade networks”, concludes Salcedo. The project is a clear example of how the protection of citizens’ rights improves life for the population and serves as a model for countries in the region.