Canary Islands will allocate 7.7 million euros to international cooperation next year, a budget item that represents a 42% increase compared to the 5.4 million euros allocated to these policies in the current year
In this way, the Government fulfills the commitment made by President Fernando Clavijo at the meeting he held on October 7 with the Coordinator of Development NGOs of the Canary Islands (CONGDCA) to learn firsthand about their demands and analyze the possibility of intensifying the Canary Islands' strategy abroad.
In said meeting, Clavijo informed the representatives of the third sector of the autonomous Executive's intention to inject more funds into international cooperation projects in the African and Latin American countries with which the archipelago maintains neighborly and historical ties.
Also participating in the meeting were the Deputy Minister of Foreign Action, José Luis Perestelo, the Director General of External Relations, Myossoty Paradelo, and the Director General of Relations with Africa, Luis Padilla.
In fulfillment of this commitment, the 2026 budget project – currently being debated in its second reading in Parliament – includes 7.7 million euros for international cooperation, compared to the 4.5 million euros allocated in this year's accounts. Of this amount, the allocation for international cooperation is the most significant: it increases from 3.9 million euros to 5.6 million, representing a 43.3% increase in a single fiscal year.In addition, the regional government will allocate 1.7 million euros next year to humanitarian emergencies abroad, compared to the 1.4 million allocated in the 2025 budget. This represents a 21% increase in this item, an increase that quadruples the overall increase in the autonomous community's budget for 2026 (7%).
The international cooperation accounts for the next fiscal year also include two other agreements reached by the Government with the third sector. Firstly, funds allocated to Citizen Education are being reinstated with an allocation of 300,000 euros. External Action thus responds to one of the main demands put forward by non-governmental organizations carrying out cooperation projects in developing countries, especially in Latin America and West Africa.
The 2026 budget also doubles the direct resources for support to the Coordinator of Development NGOs of the Canary Islands, increasing from 30,000 euros annually to 60,000 euros following the request for aid submitted at the meeting in early October. The Executive has also provided increased support to this third sector organization in this year's budget.
Canary Islands' efforts to aid developing countries are supported, in addition to 7.7 million in international cooperation, by **other significant budgetary items**Thus, the 2026 budget includes 938,014 euros to cover the purchase of **medications** abroad, 2 million euros for **food** for the more than 60,000 Canary Islanders living in Venezuela, and 1.5 million euros for **health insurance** for islanders residing in this Latin American country
The budgets designed by the regional Executive for 2026 also include 750,000 euros allocated to humanitarian aid for the Sahrawi people, a sum that the groups supporting the Government have committed to increasing during the parliamentary process of partial amendments to one million euros, an amount that has been allocated for this purpose in regional budgets year after year.
On the part of the Directorate General for Relations with Africa, the 2026 accounts once again include a specific item to finance the second edition of the Tierra Firme project. This is a pioneering initiative of dual vocational training in Senegal, Mauritania, and Gambia that has been underway for two years in the main countries of origin for those traveling in pirogues to the archipelago, in order to discourage migration.
