Examination of witness (Questions 260
- 269)
TUESDAY 27 JANUARY 1998 (AM)
MR HARM
ROZEMA
260. I know that one of the problems I saw
from working on the European Parliament's development committee
was that often when these projects did target poor farmers they
did not actually look at the fact that in some instances it was
increasing the workload for women, the women in the villages,
depending on what it was. I just wondered whether you feel that
the impact on women specifically is being taken very much into
account now.
(Mr Rozema) So far we have not paid a lot of attention
to the aspect of the gender issues. I am not quite sure why not.
One of the reasons could be that the projects and programmes we
look at are by definition actually being executed and the programming
of such action dates back two or three years or even longer. Certainly
if it is pre-Lomé IV the gender issue was not an issue;
it was an issue but not in the Lomé context. You would
usually not find the gender consideration in the project proposal.
It becomes a little bit difficult for the Court because we tend
to accept the Convention as the policy document. Of course if
the Court of Auditors, or I myself as a person, believe that somethings
should be done, the Commission could immediately ask why and say
that it is not in the policy document, no priority is given to
it and that we privately may believe and think what we want. This
is hypothetical but I think that is the main reason that so far
we have not paid very much explicit attention to the gender issue.
Mr Rowe
261. The analysis of, for example, the self-confidence
and capacity to develop among the people who are recipients of
assistance is very time-consuming and difficult to do. There seemed,
understandably, quite a lot of consultation on documentary evidence
of the effectiveness of programmes, but in documentary evidence
this kind of measurement of self-determination is extraordinarily
difficult to reach. Do you feel that the procedures are moving
towards both qualitative and quantitative evidence?
(Mr Rozema) We come to one of the most important
and one of the most difficult items of the capacity building.
I believe that if the donor community really wants to do some
capacity building, the only way to achieve it is first of all
a long-term commitment and with the type of activities which are
partly short term, partly long term. Long term would be a long-term
training activity which would be to invest in the whole education
of the area, primary education, secondary education and so on.
The other point would be in the shorter term to help the existing
management improve their quality. An important aspect is that
if one talks about coordination by donors this is typically something
where an isolated donor cannot do very much. I do believe that
donors together should commit themselves to a common action. Then
we also come to the next question. If one talks about the capacity
building of individuals in a general way, this is par excellence
a domain where the needs should be formulated by the ACP countries
and not by the donors. This is the most important thing where
the aid can and should never be donor driven. This is the kind
of aid which should be recipient driven. Then you come also to
a very difficult discussion, which is political. This does not
have anything to do with auditing. When one talks about coordination
the next question is who should do the coordination. One could
say the Commission is typically an institution which should or
could do the coordination. I am not so sure, because the Commission
is also a donor amongst quite a lot of other donors. The most
logical solution, in spite of many problems, is that a beneficiary
country should do the coordination of the whole thing.
Chairman
262. It should be done in the field, in
the country.
(Mr Rozema) Yes, the coordination should be done
where the money goes, which is the beneficiary country. The beneficiary
country is in the best position to oversee the whole field. Then
you come to the whole coordination question. The whole coordination
should start at the level of overall medium-term, let us say five
years, programming. What does a country want medium term and long
term? What type of priorities would the country want to express?
What type of actions? The next question, and it would almost be
the last question, is which donor is going to finance which part
of that programme. Now it is the other way round.
Mr Rowe
263. What happens if it is a country as
corrupt as India where huge Commission projects have been completely
sidetracked? I have mentioned in this Committee before the Bihar
poultry project.
(Mr Rozema) I agree with that. If one knows, whether
it is that one or Zaire and Mobutu, that there is great corruption
then one should seriously ask what donors do there apart from
emergency aid and humanitarian aid. Is there a basis for development
at that moment? In my opinion there is not. When you look at the
EDF context we have a system of some 70 ACP states and monies
are allocated through national indicative programmes to each of
those states. If human rights, let us say, are not respected there
or democracy is not respected, one can suspend aid and—this
happened for Sudan and for Nigeria for instance—then this
may have some effect. However, money is still reserved for Sudan,
money remained still reserved for Nigeria. There are very limited
possibilities to say that a country is corrupt so the allocation
is zero and that it should be reallocated to another country.
It is almost impossible.
Chairman
264. It should be possible, should it not?
(Mr Rozema) There should be a greater flexibility.
Mr Grant
265. Are you popular with the Commission
with the views that you hold?
(Mr Rozema) It depends.
266. You mentioned a whole number of problems
both in your statement this morning and the document we received.
You talked about capacity building being one way of sorting it
out. In relation to Lomé V—I suppose that would be
EDF X or XII or something ...
(Mr Rozema) Nine.
267. What practical steps do you think can
be taken under Lomé V to address these problems you have
quite rightly identified?
(Mr Rozema) Under Lomé V that aspect of
co-management, bringing more responsibilities to the ACP countries,
should be stressed. I believe that before making a programme a
more in-depth analysis of the country policy should be done by
the country itself. I would hope that in that process also other
donors would be involved and certainly member states, but so far
experience, the willingness even of member states to coordinate
with each other and with the Commission, is very, very limited
indeed and that is then not beyond the Lomé V actors' but
certainly a little bit beyond the Commission's influence. Another
thing is that the delegations in ACP countries should be strengthened
and strengthened in two ways: they should have more power and
they should have more manpower. There has been quite a lot of
discussion about having more posts for development aid, DG VIII.
My feeling has always been—but that is a feeling—that
one has in mind more people in Brussels. I believe that more people
should be in the delegations. That is important. I also believe—but
that goes a little bit further—that the political role of
the delegations should be made more explicit. It is there but
it is hidden. Here is an overall political problem that of course
member states would not like to have a kind of Community ambassador
in ACP states but de facto they do play a political role
and I think it should be made more explicit.
Chairman
268. Would one method of effective coordination
be to make the European Union be the lead organisation in coordinating
member state aid with its programmes? If we say that, do you think
that the European aid has been sufficiently effective to justify
giving them that lead role?
(Mr Rozema) I do not believe that it has been
more or less effective than others. There is another point. When
one looks at the type of aid given by the Commission, to some
extent it is not very different from other donors. Apart from
some types of intervention like structural adjustment and a little
bit more humanitarian aid than member states would do, which has
basically been delegated to the Commission, apart from that, normal
development aid is very similar to development aid given by the
member states. At the moment the aid given by the European Development
Fund is not specific to the European Union. What that means is
that apart from the 15 donors, one has added a sixteenth donor.
In such a situation one could ask whether a sixteenth donor is
by definition the best to coordinate. I am not so sure. I do not
even believe that it would be easily accepted or perhaps would
not be accepted at all by member states, given the experience
over ten years. One could also say in terms of the aid itself
that there are two extremes: all development aid is channelled
through the Commission of all the member states. I am not quite
sure whether that is so feasible. Or, that the Commission does
not do any development aid, with the exception perhaps of eg.
"Stabex" and structural adjustment and would instead
do coordination. My doubt remains whether in the end it should
be the donor or a coordinated donor community who should do the
coordination, who should be in the driving seat. I am not so sure
about that.
269. The recipients should do it.
(Mr Rozema) Yes.
Chairman:You have given us an enormously interesting
session of an hour and a half. I should like to thank you very
much indeed for making the effort and coming to us and talking
so knowledgeably about this difficult subject. Thank you very
much.
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