Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona

4. The global demographic trends for the coming years are defined by a sharp increase in the world population and, linked to this fact, by the acceleration of the urbanization processes, with a particular incidence in the developing countries. According to the previsions, in the next decades, much of the estimated urban growth will take place in countries with lower incomes. Thus, it is estimated that by 2030, two third parts of the world population will be living in urban settlements, and it is noticed that much of this growth is occurring in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This reality imposes significant challenges to the cities and urban conurbations of the South, in terms of equity and social cohesion, territorial articulation and urban planning, as well as sustainability and provision of public goods ranging from the access to drinking water to the citizenship safety. In turn, this reality leads cities and urban conurbations to become the main protagonists of the agenda of the promotion of sustainable human development, both at a global and a local level, as it is explicitly stated in the recent statement of the Rio +20 Summit, and stated in the different contributions and debates that take place in the context of the agenda for the post-2015 development.

5. Along with the accelerated urbanization process, during these last years there have been significant decentralization processes in many developing countries, linked to the third wave of democratization. In this context, the society, articulated around elementary demands, such as the right to have access to drinking water or to a decent housing, has achieved a high level of organization and, in many cases, has lead the local governments to adopt favorable policies to these sectors. Consequently, the governments and local authorities work as engines of change and social transformation agents that can enhance the creation of fast urbanization processes in a more orderly, equitable and sustainable way. The recognition of this role as agents of change and as elements of welfare provision in the territory has been reflected by different multilateral international organizations like the United Nations, through programs, such as Art-PNUD, and agencies such as UN-Habitat.

6. This increasingly recognition as development agents has gone hand in hand with the every time more important presence of the cities, and the local governments and authorities within the international arena. Governments and local authorities have become fully entitled actors in international relationships, and its incorporation into the international architecture of help and the global governance has become a reality in an increasingly interdependent, multipolar and complex world, in which the multilevel governance defines the new ways of governing and addressing global and local challenges. The recognition of this role is clearly expressed in the Partnership for the Effectiveness of the Development Cooperation which results from the 4th High Level Forum of Busan. Similarly, the increasing role of governments and local authorities in international relationships has led to the emergence of international networks of local governments and cities such as CGLU, Metropolis, Medcites or Plataforma, together with its important task of incidence in international forums promoted by the OECD, the United Nations or the European Union.

7. The reality of the decentralized Catalan cooperation is a clear example of how the solidarity actions of the civil society carried out during de 80s and the 0.7 % movement from the 90s, both led a strong role of local actors seen as agents of development cooperation. A clear expression of this reality is the creation of the Catalan Fund for the Development Cooperation in the mid 80s and the approval of the 26/2001 Catalan Law of Development Cooperation, which sets rules to different expressions of international solidarity that take place in the democratic councils through several twinnings and from the Catalan society in general. The institutional deployment following the approval of the Catalan Law of Cooperation in the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya) enables the Catalan community to develop a framework that crystallizes with the creation of the Catalan Agency for the Development Cooperation in 2003.

8. In the current context, this reality is affected by several factors, including economic, institutional and social factors that influence in many ways on the model of decentralized cooperation and that force its revision. Indeed, the significant decrease in public resources linked to the economic crisis, together with the revision of the powers of local authorities led by the Central Government and the weakening of the social support to public policies of cooperation define a scenario full of changes for the decentralized Catalan cooperation. In this context, and taking into account the evolution of the international doctrine about the decentralized development, there has been a revision of the decentralized development cooperation model, which is supposed to move from a vertical basis, based on the donor-receiver model, to an horizontal cooperation model based on the relationship among partners. As a result of this revision, the technical cooperation based on the experience of municipal cooperation is particularly relevant, to the extent that the new approach involves a transition from a cooperation relationship based on the transfer of resources to a relationship of cooperation based on the exchange of knowledge.

9. The AMB has got nearly two decades of experience in the field of international development cooperation. In these recent years, the AMB has done a revision from the first articulated contributions based on the line item for the development cooperation -product of the impulse of the 0.7% movement among the workers of the metropolitan entities- until the adoption of the first Master Plan for the Development Cooperation of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area in 2007. The 2013-2016 MP, therefore, acts as a starting point of the experience accumulated over these years and specially during the first cycle of this public policy planning: the work carried out with the metropolitan municipalities, the ONGD, the experiences of direct cooperation and cofinancing with the European Union (RESSOC 2008-2013) and the work carried out by the networks that are controlled by the AMB, such as Medcites and Metropolis

10. The current context is defined by a scenario that is quite different from the first Master Plan, since the current scenario is determined by the approval of the 31/2010 Law, about the creation of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. This change in the regulatory framework opens an institutional opportunity to work in a transversal way, coherently with this public policy, and at the same time, allows advancing, during the next planning cycle, in the articulation of a strategic, coordinated and integrated action of international development cooperation among the set of departments and agents that coexist within the AMB. In this sense, the immediate framework of this public policy is the one defined by the Metropolitan Action Plan 2011-2015 (MAP), which states that the AMB has to develop a new model of Catalan cooperation, which must be metropolitan, municipalist and concerted, as well as based on the added value of the AMB.