ISGlobal meets the Spanish Secretary of State for International Cooperation

On Friday 17 March, ISGlobal's Director General, Antoni Plasència, accompanied by the Institute's Director of Policy Analysis, Gonzalo Fanjul, met with Spain's Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela, in Madrid.

The meeting took place two weeks after the Spanish representative's visit to the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM) in Mozambique, with which ISGlobal has a long-standing strategic alliance, sharing a model of institutional, scientific and technical cooperation for 27 years. "The CISM is one of the projects with the greatest impact on bilateral relations between Spain and Mozambique," said the Spanish President, who was proud of the fundamental role played by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), as the main financier, from the creation of the CISM to the present day.

For his part, Antoni Plasència highlighted the joint process recently undertaken by the management and research teams of the CISM and ISGlobal to define the joint strategic priorities of both centres for the next five years, and also referred to other cooperation initiatives in Latin America in which ISGlobal is involved, particularly in Bolivia and Paraguay, as well as Morocco. "Our strategic alliance model is a benchmark of the value of good governance, coupled with a renewed commitment to effective collaboration between our respective research, training and management teams," said Plasència.

At the end of the meeting, the Secretary of State highlighted the opportunity of the forthcoming Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union to, among other things, highlight science as a key element of Spain's global health strategy and its implications for cooperation.