Barcelona City Council began its task of international cooperation for development and for solidarity over ten years ago, in a context marked by the citizen revindication of 0.7%, by the Balkans War (and particularly by the impact of the events in the city of Sarajevo) and by the citizen movement of solidarity that the war aroused.

One decade later, the development cooperation of Barcelona City Council has become a distinguished key policy that displays both the profile and the leadership of Barcelona in the growing international activism of the cities involved in a positive transformation of the world and of international relations, as well as the support of and commitment to the active solidarity of the citizenry and of their organisations in civil society, committed to the same effort of solidarity and transformative cooperation.

In other words, it is a policy that combines its own goals and actions with the support, projection and strengthening of the citizen task.

1.1. Why a Master Plan for International Cooperation and Solidarity of Barcelona City Council?

With the experience acquired after a decade of work, and considering the commitment to promote the policy of solidarity and cooperation – and proceeding, among other things, to substantially increase funding for development cooperation and solidarity activities - there is a clear need for a document of political definition which specifies goals and criteria, that will set out the international standards and best practices, with a clear and explicit budgetary definition. This document has been prepared with the participation of the sector, dialogue with it and its consensus.

The final result is precisely what was stated explicitly by one of the goals of this municipal mandate: the approval, by the highest municipal bodies, of the Master Plan for International Cooperation and Solidarity of Barcelona City Council, understood as a document that, while respecting municipal autonomy, is based on the legal and the strategic-planning frameworks in matters of Spanish and Catalan development cooperation, specifically the respective Master Plans 2005-2008 and 2002-2006, and also their annual applications; and as a document that establishes the directives and commitments in respect of the City Council.

Consequently, this Master Plan is a tool of pluriannual strategic planning, a guide for the applications that makes it possible to plan the implementation of the development cooperation policy with respect to the next three years, and that likewise makes it possible to assess its impact and quality.

Accordingly, it has been conceived as a document that is:

1. Validatable and coherent with the internationally accepted orientations, standards, practices and goals and, of course, with the legislation, goals and guidelines consensuated and/or effective in the country itself and the City Council itself.
2. Reasonably ambitious, in terms of both its marked municipalist nature and the transformative will that it seeks in the projects carried out directly by the City Council and in the support for projects, programmes and actions of other actors of the city.
3. Possessed of a will of stability and of strong consensus, which is why its period of effectiveness (2006-2008) covers the present mandate of the City Government and also one and a half years of the next mandate.

Overall, it has been the wish of Barcelona City Council that the Master Plan for International Cooperation and Solidarity be based on the values of equity, justice, democracy in proximity, participation, transparency and good governance.

1.2. How it has been prepared

With respect to its development, the Master Plan has been prepared by means of a participative process, with the help of experts of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Initially, the starting point was a preliminary diagnosis, debated at two workshops (with municipal actors and with actors of civil society, respectively), of a questionnaire that was answered by persons and/or groups of the two aforementioned groups. Then on the basis of this, together with consultations with the Catalan Federation of Development NGOs and the political and technical managers, the university experts prepared a draft of the Master Plan.

Accordingly, a preliminary version was debated in two participative workshops, and it was submitted to the municipal groups. Lastly, after receiving amendments and suggestions, the Plan was discussed and received a favourable report in the Plenary Assembly of the Municipal Council for Development Cooperation.