Elena Madrazo Hegewisch, AECID Director, Mario Lubetkin, IPS Director General and Federico Mayor, IPS Chair.

More than sixty participants joined lively debates on the theme “Communication and Development: policies, networks and technologies”. The seminar was held 5 - 7 July in the University of Santander, Spain as part of a series of joint activities by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the global news agency IPS Inter Press Service in 2010.

The seminar gave the opportunity to different actors in the field of communication and development cooperation to exchange their experiences and create coordination channels to improve public communication policy.

Elena Madrazo Hegewisch, AECID director, and Federico Mayor, IPS Chair, opened the seminar. Different actors and experts in the field of communication and development cooperation contributed to the debates, among them were Mario Lubetkin, IPS Director General, Cees J. Hamelink, University of Amsterdam, Liz Ford, Guardian Katine Editor, Paula Fray, Africa IPS Director, Mirta Lourenco, UNESCO Chief of Section for Media Capacity-Building, Ivar Evensmo, Senior Adviser Norwegian Agency For Development Cooperation, Nuria Clotet, Communication Director Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation, David Minoves, Director, Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation, Manuel Acevedo Ruiz, Academia Coordinator of Coop 2.0 - the International Meeting on ICT for Development Cooperation and Miguel Angel Villena, communications consultant for the Secretary of State for International Cooperation.

View of the audience.

Wide participation with more than sixty representatives of NGOs, institutions, international organizations, journalists, media and donor countries participated to the event, which is the third organized so far this year by AECID and IPS.

Read Europa’s press release (in Spanish) here: Espana seguira liderando la cooperacion al desarrollo a pesar de la crisis, segun la AECID

And EFE’s (also in Spanish) here: Mayor Zaragoza demanda “soluciones valientes” contra el narcotrafico

Visit the flickr album for more photos of the event.