Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Marina Sereni chaired the National Council for Development Cooperation (CNCS). Today’s meeting of this body, envisaged by law 125/2014, was attended via videoconference by over 50 of the leading public and private, profit and non-profit actors operating in the world of cooperation.
The event was an opportunity to reflect on the strategy and perspectives of Italian Cooperation, which Sereni summarised as follows: “What is at stake is as simple to describe as it is complex to achieve: promoting coherence, effectiveness, better content and mobilising the capacities, practices of excellence of our Cooperation. Confrontation and the exchange of ideas are fundamental for a sector such as this one. I am therefore convinced that the National Council is a crucial aid to making our action increasingly incisive”.
Vice Minister Sereni also focused on the issue of resources: “The level of our Official Development Aid must resume a path of growth as a percentage of Gross National Income to adjust to the levels required by international commitments. I can assure the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the full commitment to prepare the next budget law. I hope it will allow us to offer more resources for cooperation, particularly for the bilateral one. In any case, whatever the level of available resources, it is necessary to invest in their quality and effectiveness, distinctive traits of our cooperation and work highly appreciated abroad. The Coopera Conference, which we will discuss in the next CNCS, is essential to present the positive role of Cooperation for the Country System, the good practices developed in decentralised cooperation, the relations built by our Universities, the role of diasporas and the daily work of Civil Society Organisations”.
Several parliamentarians also attended the meeting: the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Piero Fassino, the President of the Standing Committee for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Emanuela Del Re, the President of the Bicameral Commission for Childhood and Adolescence Licia Ronzulli, and Senator Michela Montevecchi, member of the Extraordinary Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights.
