Setting new intervention priorities while facing dwindling resources is the goal of the Italian Development Cooperation’s Steering Committee when it meets on 8 June to set 2012-2014 guidelines.
Cooperation an essential foreign policy tool
Cooperation is one of the most “essential tools of foreign policy”, and in order to maintain its effectiveness it is necessary “to reorient interventions on the basis of priorities”, ministry spokesperson Giuseppe Manzo explained, pointing out a 48% in funding cuts from 2011 to 2012, from 358 to 203 million euro – an even sharper drop considering the period that began in 2008 during which overall funding has been slashed by 75%.
The Steering Committee expects to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Syria (medical kits for the treatment of 30,000 patients are being dispatched from Brindisi), Afghanistan, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Somalia.
