As major European Union donors such as Germany, France, and Denmark pull back on foreign aid, Spain is trying to buck the trend by setting an ambitious goal to spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid — a dramatic jump from the country’s current level of 0.24%.
But Antón Leis García, director of Spanish development agency AECID, admits that just getting to 0.4% or 0.5%, a target reached by many of the model countries they’ve been studying, would be a step in the right direction for Spain.
“In 2021, we had a budget when I took over of €360 million and last year, it was 708 million euros,” Leis said, noting that with its development financing arm, AECID manages a portfolio of about €1 billion. “It’s still small … we need to continue growing, but that’s a good testimony of the commitment to growth.”