As noted in the last United Nations Human Development Report (UNDP, 2005), despite the progress made in recent years in terms of development, 10.7 million children still die each year before reaching the age of five and over one billion people struggle to survive each day in extreme poverty. The challenges of poverty, welfare and development guide the main actions of the international community with regard to cooperation and international solidarity. To meet the ambitious Millennium Development Goals, which were set at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 and given a deadline of 2015, certain paths must be followed.

Catalan cooperation policy is in keeping with the priorities set out by the international community and reflects, through the Catalan Cooperation Act (Act 26/2001) of 31st December, the 2003-2006 Master Plan (and its amended 2005 text) and the different annual plans, the Catalan public sector’s commitment to the promotion of human development and the eradication of poverty.

Starting with the Monterrey Conference, the international community gave a major boost to its commitment to financing for development. Indeed, as stated in the United Nations Development Programme report, since 2001, aid has grown in real terms by 4% each year. The European Union’s commitment to financing for development in the form of official development assistance is expected to reach 0.5% of gross national income by 2010 and 0.7% by 2015. As for Spain, the commitments are even more ambitious, and official development assistance is expected to reach 0.5% of gross national income by 2008 and 0.7% by 2012.

In this context, the Government of Catalonia allocated 0.29% of the revenue it collects through its own taxes to Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2005 and almost 0.36% in 2006. It hopes to raise this figure to 0.7% by the end of the legislative period.

This firm commitment to financing for development has led to a considerable increase in the budgets for cooperation and international solidarity, which, in turn, poses major challenges with regard to ensuring that the quantitative improvement in development assistance is matched by qualitative ones.