Welcome to this department of NouSol ONG. We work internationally on projects of international cooperation and humanitarian aid, working together with local authorities and state-owned institutions, to ensure the personal and communal development of vulnerable, marginalised or socially-excluded groups.
CO-DEVELOPMENT
We operate co-development as a model of decentralised international cooperation, looking for collective intervention in the fields of migration and development. As such, it is important to look for mutual interest from participating communities. The term ‘co-development’ comes from the amalgamation of the terms ‘migration’ and ‘development.’ It results logically from the actions of migrant populations, leaving their countries to look for a life plan relating more to their interests, who also plan to support economic, social and cultural development initiatives in their communities and countries of origin. One of the distinctive features of co-development, as opposed to the traditional view of development cooperation and the migrant situation, is including migrants as development factors, starting from the transnational experience of two realities, one in their country of origin and one in their host country.
Working in co-development has some especially important and relevant factors:
- The opportunity to develop cooperation from town to town.
- Working with local community counterparties – resulting in a high level of public accountability.
- Cooperation focusing on responding to real needs from the outset and curbing rural migration.
- Migrants act as a form of power in their communities of origin, which can have a positive influence on encouraging processes of change.
- Transnationality – immigrants, with their first-hand experiences, are useful spokespeople to promote development.
- The inclusion of groups in Catalan society, based on their participation and rapprochement in social movements and organised groups in the municipal sector.
GENDER APPROACH
The gender approach is an essential requisite for equal development, which incorporates half of the world’s population. It includes analysing and transforming the structural causes which lead to inequality or discrimination towards women in all spheres (economic, work, political, social, cultural) by means of strategies to eradicate them.
With this understanding, the gender approach reclaims its political meaning, developed through criticism of the patriarchal system. Moreover, at the centre of the debate lies the sustainability of human and environmental life, a new redistribution of care and productive work, a life free from violence, sexual and reproductive rights, and economic, work and political rights for women, among others.
The inequalities women face for being female intertwine with other forms of discrimination that aggravate and worsen their full exercise of their human rights. These numerous forms of discrimination include age, nationality, ethnicity, origin, social class, disability and sexual orientation, among others. The gender approach places special emphasis on this intertwining to ensure a move away from allowing these women to experience different forms of discrimination, to helping look for better equality for this group and helping them develop fully.
In order to apply the gender approach effectively, a dual strategy is required, one which combines adopting specific objectives directed towards the promotion of women’s rights and their empowerment, with applying this gender perspective in public policy in its entirety: the design, application, monitoring and evaluation.
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is the point of reference in establishing a consensus on what is understood to be discrimination towards women, and an agenda for fighting against this discrimination. This point of reference concludes with the Beijing Platform for Action, led by UN Women, and its program of agreements which must be adhered to regarding women’s rights.
Translation thanks to Volunteering ONU, Alastair Innes.