Deputy Minister Marina Sereni chaired the first annual meeting of the Joint Committee for Development Cooperation, also attended by the Director General for Development Cooperation, Fabio Cassese and the director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), Luca Maestripieri.
The initiatives passed by the Joint Committee include extending the 92-million-euro financial endowment for the 2020 call for tenders for the provision of contributions to initiatives promoted by civil society organizations and other non-profit organizations.
In particular, the new financial endowment for the 2020 call for tenders will make it possible to approve all the initiatives considered eligible both for priority and non-priority Countries for cooperation for an overall amount of up to 177 million euros.
“It is a very important decision – Deputy Minister Sereni stressed– that is intended to highlight the quality of the projects submitted by Civil Society Organizations within the framework of the new AICS procedures and indicates the will to gradually bolster to the extent possible the bilateral component of our cooperation, following up on one of the OECD-DAC recommendations that we are incorporating into our three-year programming.”