15/07/2020
After a successful pilot experience, the 'Country Dialogues' prove themselves a key tool of the project
After a successful pilot experience, the 'Country Dialogues' prove themselves a key tool of the project
The European Union (EU) and Latin America consider climate change to be one of the cornerstones of their bi-regional relations. For this reason, the EUROCLIMA+ programme has become established as an emblematic European cooperation instrument to support the region in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
It is within this context that EUROCLIMA+ conceived the ‘Country Dialogue’ process as an optimal mechanism to respond in a direct and coordinated manner to the demands of partner countries in Latin America.
The identification of the strategic needs of each country is proposed through dialogue processes with the institutions and relevant actors in the area of climate change. To implement these types of dialogue processes, FIIAPP, together with the German cooperation agency, (GIZ), have taken into account the country round table of the EUROsociAL+ Programme, which is also financed by the European Commission and partly managed by FIIAPP.
The country dialogue process aims to identify a country’s “demand” for EUROCLIMA+ services, monitor its progress and support updating plans for implementation of the NDCs as well as coordinating EUROCLIMA+ actions and aligning them with the EU’s political dialogue with the country.
In 2019, the General Directorate for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO), the entity in charge of the EUROCLIMA+ programme, commissioned FIIAPP and the German cooperation agenda GIZ to carry out a pilot study of this methodology in four countries in the region that asked to participate: Paraguay, Honduras, Ecuador and Cuba. The idea was to create and design, together with the partner countries, spaces for dialogue that would allow the identification of priority needs to be met by the agencies implementing the EUROCLIMA+ programme.
The pilot run of the dialogues in these four Latin American countries has been an enriching process for the agencies involved and for the programme in general. In 2020, with the completion of the pilot phase, the EUROCLIMA+ Programme is being reorganised in order to identify and respond to the needs of the participating countries through these processes.
This evolution in response to the demands of the countries seeks to position the European Union as a strategic partner for Latin America, establishing relationships of trust between countries and regions that face common challenges.
