Why Barcelona?

Barcelona has a long history on the defense of rights and freedoms. It is one of the first European cities that created a Department for civil and social rights and has a strong network of social organizations and NGOs highly committed to values such as equity, solidarity, justice and democracy. This deeply rooted tradition, combined with a global approach into the today’s citizenship problems, offers a good environment for critical thinking, knowledge creation and solving-oriented projects.

Barcelona City Council’s international cooperation policy is largely, the consequence of citizens pressure and enjoys a broad political consensus. So far, Barcelona is the European city that expends the most in international cooperation (3,5% of its 2020 budget), partly thanks to the commitment achieved in 2015, to secure 0.7% of the GDP for ODA.  This commitment is today stated in the Barcelona Cooperation for Global Justice Master Plan 2019-2021.

Barcelona is quickly becoming synonymous with innovation and our city has consistently ranked among Europe’s best. We have developed sophisticated hubs in the fields of design, technology, biomedicine, gastronomy and medical research, among others, and we seek to do the same for new fields of innovation.

To further its commitment to welcoming new international policy actors to Barcelona, our city has adopted the BCN Action Plan: a deliberately ambitious, cross-sector strategy aimed at accelerating the pace at which new international organisations and professionals arrive in Barcelona.