Funds in perspective

Nowadays there are several autonomous regions where work is being done, so as to start up processes of constitution of new funds for cooperation, which are at different stages of consolidation:

• Aragon: in mid 2000 a board was created. composed by the three Province Councils and Town Councils of Huesca, Zaragoza and Teruel, the Aragonese Municipalities Federation, the Managers Confederation of Zaragoza, two savings banks, two trade union representatives and the Aragonese Autonomous Government, in order to promote the Aragonese Cooperation Fund, whose existence was provided by the Law relative to cooperation for development, passed by the Aragonese Parliament on December 14th, 2000. At this moment, they have already agreed on its rules, which include the 10 points of the document on the fund model of the Confederation, thus intending to facilitate its joining to it.
  
  
• Asturias: at the request of the Asturias NGOs Coordinating Committee , a Conference was held in Oviedo on 12th November, 2003 , in order to make the Funds known. Representatives of the Catalan Fund and the Galician Fund took part in it, as well as representatives of town councils, NGOs for Development, and the general manager of the Agency for Development Cooperation of Asturias. The committee of management of the Asturian Fund for Cooperation, gathering several town councils, and counting on the support of the Asturian Federation of Councils and the Asturian Agency for Cooperation, expects that the Fund will be working in 2006.
  
  
• Castile-La Mancha: also in this case, the law on cooperation provides the creation of a fund. There was an attempt to start the process carried out by the Autonomous Government, but it did not succeed. Now it has been begun again from the rank and file, and it is stated a strong will of promoting it, although the dates have not been determined yet.
  
  
• Likewise, concerning the European scope, during the last few months of 2004 the Galician Fund was in contact with some Portuguese municipalities that also undertake development cooperation tasks. After a meeting in Baiona on 1st October between municipalities from Galicia and Portugal, which was organised to exchange experiences on undertaking decentralised cooperation, they have continued working together:
  - On 24th November, in Loures (near Lisbon), a meeting entitled The local development and cooperation challenges was held, which was attended by about fifty people, including representatives of Portuguese and southern countries' town councils, NGOs and university professors. A report was presented and received very positively, on the experience of decentralised cooperation in Spain and in particular, the Cooperation Funds.
  - On 25th November a meeting took place with the authorities of the Palmela Municipal Chamber, in which there was clear interest to expand cooperation associations in Portugal and a number of agreements were adopted. These included to hold a conference in Palmela in April 2005 on international cooperation and local associations, open to municipal politicians and technicians from all over the country; to undertake a stock take of Portuguese development cooperation at local level; and to issue some of the publications of the Confederation of Funds publications in Portuguese.

  Currently there are about fifty Portuguese municipalities that work in cooperation, mainly targeting African countries with Portuguese connections, that are very interested in creating a cooperation fund, although it still needs to be decided if it will be defined over a territorial area or in function of the group of countries that cooperate.

  
  

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