On 31 January last year, in accordance with the agreements of the last ORU Fogar Bureau, President Abdessamad Sekkal signed a collaboration agreement with Patricio Azcarate, General Manager of the Institute of Responsible Tourism (RTI). This agreement will allow the two organizations to cooperate in different programs and participate in joint projects, as well as providing mutual advice. However, the agreement must above all allow the dissemination of positive tourism experiences that have the SDGs as a reference and the possibility that the regions of ORU Fogar can access the Biosphere certificates.

The Institute of Responsible Tourism is an independent organization, the objective of which is the implementation of sustainable development programs in the tourism industry. Its most recognized activity has to do, in any way, with the granting of the "Biosphere Responsible Tourism" certificates. The Biosphere brand recognizes the competitiveness of the tourism sector in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, but also the World Charter for Sustainable Tourism + 20 and the guidelines of the Paris Climate Summit. And so the certificate is governed by the four Biosphere Memoranda, which were approved in 2017 during the World Year of Sustainable Tourism, at conferences sponsored by the United Nations through UNESCO and the UNWTO.

The relationship between the Institute and ORU Fogar was established by the Barcelona Provincial Council which, after several years of working on the Biosphere logic, in February 2019, obtained the Biosphere Gold Certificate. ORU Fogar, after working for years on the debate on territorial development, had never focused on tourism as a development resource. Thus, in May 2019, ORU Fogar invited the RTI to take a course at the 3rd Forum on Local Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was held in Barranquilla, Atlántico (Colombia). The experience aroused great interest and the course had an overwhelming success. The agreement signed allows us to continue with the work initiated in the Atlantic Department of Colombia, with the conviction that a Biosphere certificate can accredit a region as a quality tourist destination and, therefore, reinforce a certain commitment to development.