The NGO which connects territories

A political gesture in the broadest sense of the term. That is what decentralised cooperation is according to COOPI – an Italian NGO with an annual budget of ? 40M of which only a small part, approximately ? 400,000 is made up of contributions from local and regional authorities. “It is an important contribution, however, because decentralised cooperation makes it possible for us to connect territories with one another and to raise awareness amongst people here in Italy”, explains Barbara Nese, head of planning of the NGO’s international programmes. Over the past few years COOPI has applied this idea in dozens of projects co-financed by Regions, Provinces and Municipalities in Italy. The result of one of these collaborations can be seen in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where today one hundred new houses stand where once there were only shacks. In Mathare, one of the many slums of the Kenyan capital, COOPI has worked on an urban reconstruction project as part of an international programme to tear down tin sheds replacing them with decent houses for the inhabitants. “Thanks to funding of ? 200,000 from the Region of Lombardy, we were able to take part in this programme”, explains Nese. “We worked to raise awareness within the slum dwelling community, helping people to understand the importance and benefits of the project; we then took part in the construction of new houses, taking on the task of hooking them up to the water and electrical networks and of constructing a drainage system which was previously non-existent”.
Combining several different financed projects into a unified system is one of COOPI’s priorities. This is why in Mathare, the NGO used a grant of ? 7,000 from the Province of Milan to clear up a hill previously covered with waste and to build terraced vegetable gardens. In another part of Africa, in southern Chad, COOPI used a contribution of ? 100,000 from the Region of Lombardy to assist refugees coming from Central Africa and for local development as well as a further ? 48,850 from the Municipality of Milan for healthcare and food safety projects in the same area. “Through decentralised cooperation, we have been able to launch innovative projects”, says Nese.
“Thanks to the Province of Bolzano, in the Department of Potosi in Bolivia, we have created an intercultural labour ward for those women who refuse to give birth in hospital, preferring to follow local traditions. This is a project for which we received public recognition from the Bolivian Ministry of Health”.