We have several long months of hard work behind us. Numerous meetings, agreements and negotiations for achieving our objective: to bring Latin American experts to our Spanish institutions to share, through our experts, our know-how, experience and knowledge.

But, what does this incredible exchange of experience really do?

After attending several opening and closing sessions for a variety of seminars – such as the ones on property law, wastewater treatment, social innovation, international taxation and the fight against tax fraud  – one comes to appreciate the enormous utility of these types of activities.

Activities that we could call specialised cultural exchanges and which have resulted in the creation of networks of experts that extend well beyond simple know-how. They end up leading to inseparable personal bonds and institutional links that turn into professional and cultural exchange networks.

This conclusion reconciles us once more with our work, if we were ever in doubt about what can be achieved by dint of effort and great determination.

It renews our faith in our small contributions in the context of international development cooperation, always focused on institutional strengthening through technical cooperation and mobilization of experts.

It also confirms that these actions are important, as they demonstrate, once again, that those who share experiences and knowledge are the people we manage to bring together for weeks at a time around a specific, always important, issue for Spanish Cooperation.

But we don’t leave it at that. We can go even further and be more ambitious with our expectations, as they demonstrate that, with these initiatives, we promote the sharing of a dose of culture and confidence in the institutions of different countries.  Because at FIIAPP we work for people, and thus we improve citizens’ quality of life which, in the final analysis, is our ultimate objective.

It is always gratifying to be able to see first-hand, through direct experiences narrated in the first person by our guests and collaborators, that the effort has paid off, that the reward is talking to you and asking you to continue working in this same direction and that, with great effort butnot much money, great and ambitious objectives can be achieved.

All of this encourages us to keep making an effort and working day after day to improve our institutions through people. Through this, we also progress and become better people and institutions.

By Isabel Ramos, Director of the Information and Special Programmes Area

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are the sole responsibility of the person who write them.