On August 26, Mayor Jaume Collboni concluded his two-day visit to Jordan at the new camp operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), located near Amman. After witnessing firsthand the needs of the refugee population and the challenges of delivering aid to the Gaza Strip, Collboni announced the reactivation of District 11—an instrument created by Barcelona in the 1990s to effectively contribute to the reconstruction of Sarajevo (symbolically added to Barcelona’s ten districts), which had been devastated by the Balkan War.

During his visit to the UNRWA camp, the mayor emphasized the scale-up in the cooperation model with Palestinian cities, with which Barcelona maintains strong collaborative ties. He highlighted the importance of reinforcing and stabilizing technical cooperation through this project. According to Collboni, “District 11 Sarajevo is a successful precedent, a memorable chapter in our city’s recent history of cooperation, and my decision as mayor is that, before the end of this year, we will launch it in Palestinian cities with a team from Barcelona City Council who will collaborate on urban planning, health, accessibility, and education projects. We want them to work on-site here and also host professionals in Barcelona for training, responding to the request reiterated today by project leaders.”

“Barcelona has an eleventh district,” said Collboni, stressing that this initiative reaffirms that “our commitment to Gaza City and Palestinian cities goes all the way —we will scale up our technical cooperation capacity and maintain it over time to support their reconstruction when peace arrives, which we hope will be as soon as possible.”

Given the complexity of the protracted conflict and the uncertainty of the immediate future in the region, municipal teams will now begin the process of conceptualizing and defining the District 11 project. This initiative will need to adapt to the current needs and challenges of cities, such as urban planning, public services, and climate change adaptation. Thus begins a long-term plan to be carried out in partnership with the beneficiary cities.

The announcement of the new District 11 follows recent announcement: Barcelona will double its financial contribution to UNRWA to support Gaza’s refugee population, increasing from the current €200,000 to €400,000.

Levels of Action

District 11 will start with an initial budget of one million euros. The City Council plans to develop it through three lines of action:

• With multilateral organizations such as UNRWA operating on the ground, to conduct diagnostics and respond more swiftly in emergency situations.
• Through city-to-city technical cooperation tools, within the framework of multilevel collaboration and with the involvement of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation. This will be key to reconstruction and restoring urban vitality.
• Cooperation through organizations, which are essential actors currently facing great difficulties in the region. Barcelona will leverage its extensive experience in collaborating with NGOs to implement projects.