EL BLOG DE LA FIIAPP. Cooperación Española

In October, the FIIAPP will have a new director. I would like to wish good luck to him and all the people I have worked with during my time at the Foundation.
When you change jobs, the best thing to do is to try to learn about your new responsibilities quickly and efficiently. But when you also change industries, as was my case, this efficiency must be combined with careful reflection regarding your new environment, so that urgent issues do not lead you astray from what is most important. Today, to serve as parting words, I wanted to share three of these reflections with all of you who read our newsletter.

The public and private realms are often considered from a certain distance and with reservations. For me, coming from the business world, the FIIAPP’s most important work is helping other countries in modernizing their administrations by reinforcing Spain’s role in the rest of the world, proving that in some areas, our Administration is the best. In other words, we must demonstrate that the Spanish Administration often contributes to Spain’s competitiveness through the cost-quality ratio of its services, processes, technology and training. The Administration makes many other relevant contributions, and is also an important secret weapon for Spain’s competitiveness. We should disseminate this idea and portray our civil servants as working among the world’s elite, in contrast to the very grey image that is so widespread among our citizens and institutions.

I also think it is important for all industries and professional sectors to get a little fresh air every once in a while. I have never seen another industry like the cooperation sector in my life, where people identify so much with what they’re doing. My hat goes off to most of the experts I’ve worked with, for their ethics and hard work. But at the same time, the world of cooperation is rather closed. Unfortunately this is not so strange, as I have also experienced this when working in a family-run company and in the fields of science and innovation. It’s quite easy to construct an idyllic image of the successes and the social role played by different industries, but the trend of “inbreeding” causes each industry to be very uncritical of their own mistakes, which often leads to inefficiency. I get the same impression from the Public Administration. In my modest opinion, the more TAC’s there are in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the more diplomats in the Ministry of Economy, and the more members of the State’s engineering organizations in the field of Health Care, the better our public administration will be.
As in other industries, we don’t really sell ourselves very well. The way we work in cooperation projects and the way we relate with other governments and partners is highly valued wherever we go. The same cannot be said of most of our European partners and associates from other developed countries. I sincerely believe that our style and the way we are seen by other collaborating countries can help improve our role on an international level and contribute to streamlining international laws with ours. This is just my personal opinion, but I’m sure that if a study was conducted on this topic, these ideas would be demonstrated as true. Of course, it is often difficult to convince Spaniards of these ideas, especially in terms of image and marketing, and this is why we are not able to make the most of it.

I would like to close by thanking all the people in the FIIAPP and their commitment to the President, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, for the opportunity to have been part of an institution that is as unknown as it is committed to millions of people.

Javier Quintana
Director of the FIIAPP

High-level civil servants, key actors and experts shared their experiences and presented best practices for “strengthening political decision-making based on proven migratory data.” This topic, which is extremely important at this time, is directly related to the horizontal 10 objective of the Dakar Strategy: “basing policy coherence and coordination on the acquisition and exchange of information,” approved in the Third Euro-African Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development.

The meeting included plenary sessions, participatory work groups and the presentation of practical cases and examples. This format provided the participants with various tools for compiling reliable data, highlighting the importance of regional and international cooperation in this field.

This meeting was also an excellent occasion to present the new Rabat Process Support Project initiatives, in collaboration with the FIIAPP.

First of all, the project offers short-term technical assistance throughthe deployment of international and local expertsin order to improve national capacity building on both a human and institutional level.Secondly, it provides better access to migratory data for greater understanding of the migratory situation in participating countries, and consequently, better coordination.

Accordingly, the consortium has developed various tools to favour the exchange of information, such as the interactive “iMap” platform, which offers a dynamic, visual presentation of different migratory data collected throughout the project, and the possibility of participating in discussion forums on the project’s website (www.processusderabat.net).

The meeting’s high attendance (nearly 60 representatives from Africa, Europe and international organisations) reaffirms the importance of these issues and a renewed interest in the migration and development dialogue.

Last May, a conference on “Improving the response to organised crime and drug trafficking along a cocaine route” took place, as part of the “CORMS – cocaine route monitoring system” project. This conference was intended to provide answers to questions such as: How is organised crime changing? What type of response can we expect on a regional level? How can local authorities connect with civil society? What are the key aspects of the European Commission’s future Cocaine Route Programmes?

Many interesting responses were given to these questions, which are summarised below:

According to Ernesto Savona, Director of Transcrime and Professor of Criminology, we must undertake a careful, detailed analysis so as not to repeat the same policies from 10 years ago. The situation in Mexico could have been prevented if we had looked into its weaknesses through a macro-analysis of the State’s corruption and organisation.

Paula Miraglia, a specialist in the Public Sector in Brazil, claims that the use of mass incarceration is not appropriate as a means for fighting against drug trafficking. Young people who are incarcerated join criminal gangs in prison, thereby creating a sort of army. The poor get imprisoned and the others get money. There is nothing naïve about wanting to regulate the market. At least it would stop poor people from being arrested and the others from getting richer. Drugs affect social justice, making it an ideological problem.

According to the President of the Western African Drug Commission and former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, institutions in Western Africa are fragile and the budget for the fight against drugs is much lower than the resources managed by criminal organisations. The difference between the investment in prevention and the cost of handling the drug problem is huge – the cost is seven times greater than the investment. We cannot expect Western Africa to fight against drugs alone when consumers and producers are located in other geographic areas.

Janice McClean, Head of the Project Team Against Money Laundering in Western Africa (directed by the FIIAPP), believes that drugs are a business. Although it is an illegal business, if we start to treat it as a business, we’ll be on the right track. As a business, our first objective should be to confiscate illegal money. If you take the money off the streets, the drug traffickers will be forced to swallow their pride. It is more effective to take away their money than to imprison them, and anything that cannot be justified should be taken away.

Más información de la reunión en el PDF adjunto

Miguel de Domingo
Area Director in FIIAPP

At the “Configuration of the Spanish position in the post-2015 agenda” debate forum held in Madrid on the 16^th of September, organised by the General Secretary of International Development Cooperation (SGCID), a document was presented that establishes Spain’s post-2015 position.

Our country shares the United Nations’ and the European Union’s focus on defining a new agenda that accounts for lessons learned from the MDGs, including priority topics such as sustainability, climate change, the middle class, and poverty.

Spain has proposed a comprehensive agenda that includes the principles of aid efficiency and coherence, with the main goal of eradicating extreme poverty.

Amina Mohamed, advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, whoattended the event, reiterated the importance of public opinion in building these new objectives to guarantee the planet’s development. Society, Mohamed says, must be part of the process and must feel implicated in the agenda. One million people from 144 countries have already participated in these consultations.

Amina Mohamed established the primary goal to eradicate poverty. “We are the first generation that can achieve this,” she commented, and she mentioned various ways in which we are already working towards this goal, including universality, sustainable development, economic transformation, good governance and a new global partnership that recognises common interests.

The International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAPP) is very interested in the post-2015 debate and hopes that the new MDGs will serve to improve the situation of all societies and activate the planet’s development.

#somoscooperacion

In recent days, two events have taken place which are very important for a public foundation like the FIIAPP: the approval of the reform of public administrations and the presentation of our first annual forum, which will emphasise the important role played by Spanish civil servants in strengthening Spain’s image abroad.

Even though I am aware of the great differences between these two initiatives, it seems to me to be particularly relevant that, in both cases, a significant role is played by the internationalisation of administrations. The vast majority of the world’s citizens are completely unaware of that role, but it is nonetheless of considerable political and economic importance (which, unfortunately, is never measured).

The internationalisation of the public administrations differs to a great extent from that of the private sector. Companies venture abroad mainly to sell more products or services. Though there are isolated cases (I have just remembered a border post which, due to the high level of corruption of the customs administration of the country of origin, the decision was taken to hand over its management to foreign public bodies, and I don’t think it’s an isolated case) or public companies that attend to the needs of foreign citizens, the purpose of public administrations is to provide services to people in their own countries. The fundamental aim of internationalisation is the exchange of knowledge between equals.

The Commission for the Reform of Public Administrations (CORA) in Spain has demonstrated that it is very much aware of the value of this exchange of knowledge. Evidence of this is the way in which the experience of Canada, France and the United Kingdom in the modernisation of their respective administrations has been taken as a fundamental reference and a vital asset to guarantee the success of its proposal.

The 1^st FIIAPP Forum of Expertswill also have that exchange of knowledge at its heart. But in this case for projects in which the information flows in a different way. For cases in which the Spanish administration provides its knowledge to other administrations which want to follow a similar route. In this regard, it will come as no surprise if, as currently occurs in the spheres of Justice, the Environment, Organ Donation or the Safety of railway networks,within a few years it is Spanish civil servants of worldwide prestige who go to other countries to explain the recently-approved reform of the public administrations.

Allow me, in conclusion, to move away from the theme slightly, to tell you just how important it is for us that we were mentioned in the text of the CORA report on two occasions. One to highlight how important it is that institutions like the FIIAPP should generate revenue abroad, favouring economic growth and the fight against the public deficit. And the other to stress the need to improve the coordination of the Spanish public entities that work abroad. We are committed to both objectives and we hope to continue to respond successfully to the challenges they represent.

P.S.: Naturally, you are all invited to the Forum on the 26^th of November. For all of us who form part of the FIIAPP, it will be an honour to welcome you.

Javier Quintana
Director of the FIIAPP

On July 4-5, the meeting “Promotion of cross-border mobility of people and goods” took place in the economic capital of Benin. What better city than Cotonou to discuss the free circulation of people and goods – a clear nod to Euro-African relations – which also emphasizes the role of the baseline trade port in West Africa, particularly in the area of the Gulf of Guinea.

Over the course of these two days, with the help of the Ministry of the Interior of Benin and particularly its Permanent Secretary Marcel Baglo, the Head of the EU Delegation, the FIIAPP and its ICMPD and UN-IDEP partners, we had the opportunity to bring together new civil servants, representatives of African and European countries, and representatives of regional African international organizations, in a forum for dialogue. Among the experts invited by the EU, we would like to mention the experts sent by the French andSpanish Ministries of the Interior, as well as the representative of the European Agency FRONTEX. Among the participants from Africa, we would like to mention the experts from ECOWAS, TradeMark Southern Africa and Kenya, among others.

Throughout this meeting, the various parties shared their experiences and their opinions regarding specific problems inherent in facilitating the movement of people and goods and what this implies for effective, controlled management of these flows. True freedom can only be achieved if it is supported by a system that can ensures freedom for all, both people and governments. There cannot be a paradigm of freedom without legal and physical security. Therefore, the integrated management of borders, i.e. which facilitates and accelerates procedures for greater mobility of people and goods, must be one of the main elements that the administrations involved must consider when developing border policies, as concluded in the recommendations from the meeting debates.

Regarding a topic as sensitive and relevant as border management to promote greater mobility, the MME Project once again maintained a spirit of open collaboration and cooperation arising from the creation of the Africa-EU Partnership on Migration, Mobility and Employment (MME). This meeting in Cotonou marked the renewal of the mutual legitimate interests of the EU and the AU, as well as the various member states and regional organisations, regarding the need to base border policies on concepts that are shared by everyone involved. These concepts must enable the strengthening of government operations while favouring greater degrees of freedom for the activities of citizens.

Javier Vega Barral
Project Technician. Migration and Development Program