APPENDIX 9
Memorandum submitted by Mrs Glenys Kinnock
MEP
INTRODUCTION AND
OVERVIEW
1. The European Commission is committed
to a radical restructuring of the management and organisation
of its work. A very high priority is being given to reforming
the way external assistance is given. As Commissioner Poul Nielson
acknowledged in March 2000, "Reform is important for the
Commission as a whole. But reform is a question of do or die for
the Commission's external aid."
2. The European Commission has received
criticism from national governments, NGOs, international organisations,
the European Court of Auditors and the media in the area of external
relations and aid. The criticisms were often well founded and
the proposed reforms respond directly to many of the problems
identified. The time has come to give the appropriate support
to the work of the European Commission, and to give it the resources
and authority to prove the added value which European Community
aid can bring to development co-operation.
3. In May 1999 the German Presidency asked
for an overall statement on development from the Commission. The
result is a recent document that contains some positive elements—on
quality, complementarity, selectivity, and most importantly, poverty
focus. However, there remains a lack of coherence and consistency
in the document on goals, objectives and targets. The document
does not yet make clear policy proposals or define adequately
the Commission's vision of the contribution it wishes to make
to international development in the new millennium. This Communication
should, however, be seen as only the start of the process to produce
an overall EU development policy statement. Consultations with
civil society and the European Parliament will continue and should
be improved. It is expected that a joint overall policy statement
will be adopted by EU Development Ministers and the Commission
at the next Development Council meeting in November 2000. This
should be followed by an Action Plan to implement the conclusions.
The European Parliament will expect to be directly involved in
this process.
4. On 16 May the College of Commissioners
approved a plan to create a new office, named `Europe Aid', to
improve the delivery of EU external assistance. Under the new
arrangements DG Development will continue to be responsible for
strategy and country programming for the African, Caribbean and
Pacific countries and humanitarian aid. The European Commission
Humanitarian Office (ECHO) is unaffected by the reform plans.
DG External Relations will be responsible for EC programmes in
the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America, the Balkans and the former
Soviet Union. However, strategy and programming will in the future
need to be approved by the whole Group of RELEX Commissioners:
DG External Relations, DG Development, DG Trade, DG Enlargement
and DG Economic and Monetary Affairs. The new Office will be responsible
for project and programme identification, appraisal and implementation,
and will have Commissioner Chris Patten, DG External Relations,
as its Chairman and Commissioner Nielson, DG Development, as its
Chief Executive. We still require clarity on the precise roles
of Commissioners Nielson and Patten, in particular how their named
responsibilities will match up to the services under their control.
A new Quality Support Group (QSG) will be responsible for quality
control across all EC development programmes. It will have a secretariat
in DG Development and will report to the RELEX Group of Commissioners.
The precise remit of the QSG is as yet unknown but should include
a reference to ensuring policy coherence with the EC's development
objectives. It is not yet clear what access and involvement the
Parliament, NGOs, experts, and other representatives of civil
society will have in the QSG. A new evaluation service, independent
of any one DG and reporting to the RELEX Group will also be established.
5. Although the "Europe Aid" reform
proposals are meant to embrace all aspects of EU external assistance,
the Communication on the Reform of the Management of External
Assistance claims that, "In external relations the key
policy objective is to ensure a stable and enlarged Europe with
a stronger voice in the world. " The paper does not once
mention the word poverty—despite the central focus of the
EC Development Policy Statement being the reduction of poverty—and
there is no reference to the Amsterdam Treaty's primary objectives
of combating poverty, and fostering support to the world's most
disadvantaged countries. There is also no mention of the International
Development Targets in the document. The efficient management
of EC aid is not an end in itself. The achievement of the EC's
development objectives should be a clear and stated aim of the
reforms.
6. Both initiatives have the potential to
radically improve the management, implementation, and quality
of EU development co-operation, but only if they are part of a
conceptual framework which has poverty reduction at its core.
Assuming that this is achieved the pressure will then be on Member
States and the European Parliament to support the plans and provide
the Commission with the resources it needs. The warning given
by Commission Patten is a severe one. If the Commission does not
get support from the Council of Ministers then up to two-thirds
of the EU's aid budget will be impossible to administer and, "the
Commission will be obliged to scale existing programmes back to
what can be managed properly. It's not a question of fraud or
incompetence. We have excellent staff but the fact is there aren't
enough of them to do the job effectively. " Commissioner
Chris Patten, 17 May 2000. This is an understandable threat from
the Commission. However, the stakes are high when this may be
exactly what certain Member States want to hear.
7. There remains a worrying lack of clarity
about what will happen to the Commission's work programme and
disbursements during the whole reform process. It could take up
to two years to get things in order and until that time it is
not yet clear who's doing what and where responsibilities will
lie.
Concerns about the marginalisation of development
8. There needs to be a synergy between development
co-operation, trade and political action. The Commission wants
to develop a "culture of collective management" but
the Development Committee of the European Parliament and NGOs
are concerned that the EU's external assistance will be increasingly
dominated by political and strategic priorities in Eastern and
Central Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Mediterranean
countries. Breaking down the traditional barriers is theoretically
a good idea but could, in practice, lead to further domination
of the issues and their priorities by the RELEX framework. We
accept that international co-operation has changed everyday needs
and that the EC needs to be a credible global player and donor.
However, we do not want to see development marginalised in that
process. We want our partner developing countries to be consulted,
and included, and the Development Directorate-General needs to
have the capacity to represent the interests of those countries
and their governments and people.
9. The ACP-EU Partnership Agreement signed
on 23 June in Cotonou, Benin provides for the start of negotiations
by 1 September 2002 on WTO-compatible regional economic partnership
agreements, or other WTO-compatible arrangements. These arrangements
should take account of the level of development and the socio-economic
impact of trade measures on the African, Caribbean and Pacific
countries. With all DG Development trade specialists transferred
to DG Trade, and the emphasis in DG Trade on trade liberalisation
rather than development, a crucial question arises as to how the
Commission will organise itself to prepare and carry out negotiations
with the ACP with a view to meeting these specific development
objectives. In particular, what will be the responsibilities and
relationship of DG Trade and DG Development in this process?
10. The criticisms of the EC's aid programme
are well documented. The OECD's Development Assistance Committee
(DAC) peer review of 1998 found that as a result of the organisational
structure of the Commission, EC development policy tends to be
fragmented and incoherent. The Commission was criticised for being
insufficiently focussed on implementation and results. The DAC
review did however acknowledge that over the past four years the
Commission has started to address these issues, although it will
be some time before we will be able to properly assess the impact
of the changes being implemented.
11. Clearly the credibility and legitimacy
of the European Union's external assistance is at stake here.
However, just as a sense of urgency can help clarify the choices
that have to be made, for example, the setting up of an internal
"Office" rather than an external "Agency",
it can also lead to reforms which pay less attention than they
should to certain critical issues. We should not risk marginalising
development concerns in Europe's overall political priorities,
neither should we neglect the need to consult local players in
the organisation of new procedures. It is also important that
the process ensures that the evaluation of the whole project cycle
is not only possible but is also encouraged.
Impact of the proposed reorganisation
12. The suggested reforms are logical and
comprehensive, and there is a serious intention to create an interface
between the staff involved in programming and implementation.
Eighty per cent of the EU's external assistance programmes will
in the future be managed by the new "Europe Aid" Office—ending
the current system whereby projects are identified by Commission
Directorates but actually implemented by the Joint Service for
External Relations (SCR). The SCR became operational in 1998,
and whilst limited improvements have been evident, including considerable
simplification and harmonisation of the main procedures for aid
delivery, it is clear that the current division of tasks between
the SCR and the Directorate General's is not working and it is
reassuring that the Commission is now looking again at how to
improve disbursement rates.
13. The proposal to devolve powers to EC
Delegations in the field is very welcome indeed, and many of us
in the European Parliament have argued for this for some time.
As Commissioner Nielson noted, "Why call them Delegations
if we never delegate anything to them. " It has been
Member States which have been resistant to the idea, because they
want to micro-manage the process. There is a failure to understand
that the consequence of being unwilling to give the Commission
more authority is that the changes they always say they want to
see simply can't take place.
14. As implementation is decentralised from
Brussels it is vital to ensure that each Delegation is adequately
staffed with specialist expertise, including gender specialists,
officials with experience of the latest in participatory techniques
and development thinking on human development and social sector
support, and staff with the necessary skills to manage relations
with donors, NGOs and civil society organisations, national governments
and bodies and the International Financial Institutions. Delegations
need staff with the necessary skills to facilitate the effective
implementation of Country Strategies. This will include the recruitment
of national experts able to identify priorities. The current situation
in the Delegations is completely untenable and the to-ing and
fro-ing between them and Brussels with project proposals, and
requests for financing, simply cannot continue. The Commission
will also need to strengthen its training and secondment programme.
New systems of accountability and control must be put in place
and the European Parliament and Member States will have an important
role to play in monitoring.
15. It does not make sense for the European
Commission to be emphasising a project driven approach to co-operation
at a time when all other donors are moving towards providing budgetary
support to sectors identified in broad national country strategies.
For example, DFID's funding of the Ugandan Government's strategy
to develop the country's basic education sector. This approach
puts the national government firmly in the driving seat. It would
also reduce the demands on Commission staff and on national government
officials who would only have to work within one coherent framework.
16. The reforms will also cut back on control
and audit processes which are time consuming and unnecessary.
It is hoped too that Member States will discuss reforming comitology
because this is a level of bureaucracy which is completely unsustainable.
Member State management committees should concentrate on strategic
issues and should assume more accountability for the EC's aid
programmes. I would also emphasise the need for improved and regular
dialogue with the Member States.
17. With regard to comitology, the European
Development Fund's (EDF) complex and bureaucratic administrative
procedures, both in Brussels and at Delegation level, have always
been a stumbling block to effective implementation of funds. Indeed,
the European Court of Auditors has called for the whole set of
EDF regulations and internal rules to be examined to assess their
appropriateness. Under pressure from the European Parliament,
a Council Decision was taken in June 1999 to simplify implementing
committee procedures, unfortunately, this does not apply to the
EDF committee because of its special inter-governmental nature.
It is also not clear whether the Council's Decision on increased
transparency can be applied to the EDF committee. Simplified procedures
and transparency should be applied to the EDF committee.
18. In my view, the possibility of a "rolling
implementation" approach should be considered. This would
increase the likelihood that proper monitoring of the impact of
the reforms can take place. Rushing headlong into changes which
are good and proper but don't work in practice would be unwise.
19. The real test will be implementation.
This will involve careful management of the move from the current
crisis management approach to a new and improved system. It will
be a difficult and very complicated process, and the difficulties
should not be underestimated. We need to be clear on how such
far-reaching reforms will be put into practice. The intention
is to mainstream poverty, introduce multi-annual programming,
use complementarity as a management tool and speed up implementation
without losing the quality of programmes. This is a tall order
which will require an investment of interest from all the institutions
of the EU.
20. The new ideas also face difficulties
from the political and bureaucratic resistance which, by definition,
the change will meet.
Acute staff shortages continue to hamper the effective
delivery of aid
21. Acknowledging the severity of the problem,
Commissioner Chris Pattern announced on 16 May, "We cannot
go on as before. We cannot commit money we cannot spend. It is
dishonest and incompetent. What is the point of raining down commitments
like confetti if you can't deliver on the ground?"
22. Until the 1990s, EU development co-operation
was concentrated on African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
Today the EU influences the lives of millions of people around
the world through its trade agreements, its policies on aid and
agriculture, its growing influence in international institutions
like the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank, its common foreign and security policy
and through Foreign Direct Investment. In total EU Member States
and the European Community provide 55 per cent of all international
Official Development Assistance and more than two thirds of grant
aid. The EU is one of the world's biggest donors of food aid and
is the major trading partner of most African countries. Its network
of delegations and offices throughout the world ensures an EU
presence in 128 countries. The European Commission is now responsible
for more than 10 per cent of world-wide spending on development
assistance—up from 5 per cent in 1985.
23. However, as the demands made on the
Commission have grown, EU Governments have failed to provide the
extra staff to cope. The Commission is being asked to deliver
too many things too quickly and on too many fronts. According
to one Commission official, "The assumption in the Council
was that somehow the Commission will always manage."
Whereas EU Member States, or the World Bank, have between 4 to
9 officials for every 10 million euro of aid managed, the Commission
has 2.3 officials. In the last ten years the EU's aid programmes
have trebled but staff levels have less than doubled. Projections
of staffing needs in the Commission now suggest a shortfall of
1,300 posts. The estimated annual cost of sub-contracting the
work to about 80 private firms, which each employ around 80 people,
is 170 million euro—equivalent to about 80 per cent of what
the Commission spends on all its Delegations world-wide in one
year.
24. The Commission as a whole has fewer
staff than Clwyd County Borough or Leeds City Council.
25. The Budgetary Authority must give the
Commission the resources it needs to manage funds to the same,
or indeed higher, standard as comparable organisations in terms
of economic and political weight. One Commission official said,
"I think the sums set aside for the Human Rights Budget
Lines are absolute peanuts compared to the needs. "
26. The Commission's staffing problems are
not only quantitative. The vast majority of the Commission's staff
are highly competent and highly motivated, but all too frequently
they are frustrated by outdated procedures and burdensome red
tape. The Commission has recognised the need to take action to
address this problem. Commissioner Chris Patten is taking steps
to improve these working methods in the area of external relations
and development co-operation, and the Commissioner for Reform,
Vice-President of the Commission, Neil Kinnock, is pushing a broad
reform of management and personnel throughout the Commission,
which will modernise working methods, increase staff training,
improve management and ensure a better match between tasks and
resources. These reforms will also introduce more effective mechanisms
to deal with those—albeit a small minority—who fall
below the standards we expect.
STAFFING OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY EXTERNAL
CO-OPERATION PROGRAMMES
| Directorate General
| Officials | ExternalStaff (d)
| Total Staff | Areas of responsibility
|
| Headquarters | 1,796
| 375 | 2,171 |
|
DG RELEX (a)
(Chris Patten) | 662
| 107 | 769 | Relations with NIS, Mediterranean, Middle East, Latin America, Most Asian developing Countries,
Obnova Programme (Reconstruction in Former Yugoslavia), Programming and project preparation within the TACIS, MEDA, and ALA programmes
Human Rights & Democratisation policy, planning & budget lines, CFSP, Management of external delegations, information for delegations
|
DG Development
(Poul Nielson) | 346
| 48 | 394 | Overall development policy & all development related issues in all parts of the world, ACP, South Africa, Lome & post-Lome Conventions, NGO co-financing budget line, Non-emergency food aid budget line, Health, HIV/AIDS, Gender policy, planning & budget lines, Relations with international organisations, Integration of sectoral policies
|
| DG Enlargement (b) | 185 |
43 | 228 | Relations with all pre-accession countries, Policy, planning, negotiations on enlargement, Pre-accession assistance including the Phare Programme
|
ECHO
(Poul Nielson) | 111
| 19 | 130 | All humanitarian aid—all stages of project cycle
|
SCR
(Chris Patten) | 492
| 158 | 650 | Technical, financial, and legal aspects of implementation of all Community external assistance programmes (except humanitarian), Audits and evaluation
|
Delegation Staff
(overall) (c) | 654
| 380 (e) | 1051 |
|
| Overall Total | 2,450 | 755
| 3,222 | |
| | |
| |
(a) In addition to responsibilities with respect to ODA
and OA, DG External Relations staff are also responsible for the
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), management of external
delegations, information for delegations, policy planning and
co-ordination of policy on human rights and democratisation.
(b) In addition to responsibilities with respect to OA,
DG Enlargement staff provide further assistance in support of
the accession of CEECs to the European Union.
(c) It is currently not possible to break down Delegation
Staff by individual DG
(d) Grade I: A grade equivalent. In addition there are
1475 staff at a lower level (grades II-V).
(e) Detached National Experts; auxiliaries; interimaires.
Source: European Commission, DG Development, Personnel
Department, 1999.
POVERTY FOCUS
OF EC AID
27. The EC's aid programme is often accused of having
insufficient focus on Least Developed Countries (LDC's). As the
tables below illustrate, EC aid to LDC's has declined relative
to aid to the EU's near neighbours. The share of official development
assistance going to LDC's fell from 75 per cent in 1986 to 51
per cent in 1997. In 1986, of the ten major recipients of EC aid,
seven countries were classified by the UNDP as low income on GNP
per capita, seven were classified with a low human development
index, and six are in sub-Saharan Africa. By 1996, of the 10 major
recipients of EC aid, four were classified by the UNDP in 1997
as low income, and only one is in sub-Saharan Africa.
TOP TEN RECIPIENTS OF EC DEVELOPMENT AID
(Bilateral ODA net disbursements in $US millions,
1986-87)
1. Ethiopia 157
2. India 139
3. Sudan 126
4. Senegal 120
5. Egypt 76
6. Turkey 76
7. Tanzania 62
8. Ivory Coast 61
9. Papua New Guinea 57
10. Mozambique 52
TOP TEN RECIPIENTS OF EC DEVELOPMENT AID
(Bilateral ODA net disbursements in $US millions,
1996-97)
1. Morocco 218
2. Egypt 157
3. Bosnia/ Herzegovina 152
4. Ex-Yugoslavia 134
5. Tunisia 133
6. Palestinian Areas 130
7. Jordan 105
8. India 103
9. Bangladesh 101
10. Mauritania 98
28. The skewed nature of Western governments' humanitarian
aid was highlighted in research done recently by Oxfam on forgotten
emergencies ("An end to forgotten emergencies"
May 2000). According to Oxfam, in response to the 1999 appeal
for Sierra Leone, funds received equalled US$16 per capita of
the targeted beneficiaries. For the Democratic Republic of Congo
the figure was US$ 8.40. For Angola in 1999 it was $47.98. By
contrast, the figure for the Former Yugoslavia was US$ 207.29
per capita. In 1996, the Former Yugoslavia received 38 per cent
of aid from the European Commission Humanitarian Office (ECHO),
while 31 per cent went to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)
states. In 1999 more than half of ECHO's budget went to Kosovo
and the former Yugoslavia. This was four times the amount of aid
going to 70 ACP countries.
29. The EU's development policy must be seen in the context
of an increasingly prioritisation of relations with Eastern and
Central Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Mediterranean
countries. It is Members States who set these priorities and the
skewing of interest is reflected most tangibly in the resources
which are allocated to the so-called "middle income countries"
rather than to low income countries. The European Parliament has
consistently argued for a better poverty focus.
30. In spite of these facts it must also be noted that,
— Between 1986-90 and 1996-98 annual average commitments
to Asia more than doubled and those to Latin America tripled.
The largest recipient in 1996-98 was India, followed by Bangladesh
and China. In Latin America, 160 million euro was committed in
Peru, and Nicaragua and Bolivia both received commitments of 150
million euro.
— Between 1986-98 the ACP countries received 30
billion euro, accounting for 43.5 per cent of all EC aid that
can be allocated geographically. In 1998 EC aid to the ACP totalled
nearly 2.9 billion euro. More than three-quarters of these funds
were provided through the EDF. Unlike some Member States the EC
cannot be accused of Africa fatigue.
— During this period, 78 per cent of EC aid went
to sub-Saharan Africa. The main beneficiaries in 1996-98 were
Ethiopia, Malawi, Zambia, Mali and Mozambique.
— Currently EC aid to sub-Saharan Africa accounts
for aid disbursements of $2 billion, considerably larger than
to any other region. As world aid volumes to the region have declined
significantly, EC aid since the 1990s has increased.
THE QUALITY
OF EU AID
31. Although the structure and management of administering
EC aid is not always effective or efficient, there is clear evidence
that when the Commission is given the resources and authority
it needs there are examples of good quality programmes being implemented.
32. In spite of limited resources, compared to the actual
need, the EC has been praised for its work on human rights and
democracy, and has found innovative ways of supporting local communities
through grass roots organisations, churches and European NGOs.
According to one official working on the Community's partnership
with Nicaragua, "In the initial years of co-operation
the EC had a very good reputation indeed in Nicaragua, when people
saw I worked for the EC they would approach me with open arms.
All because we had not left them to suffer in silence in the politically
difficult years."
33. In South Africa, a special budget line and programme
was set up largely as a result of pressure from the European Parliament.
Between 1986-1994 funds for the European Special Programme grew
substantially, from 6.5 million euro to 129 million euro. The
growth of the programme reflected the importance attributed to
developments in South Africa by the European Parliament. The primary
objective was to provide practical and tangible assistance for
South Africa's peaceful transition to a free and democratic country.
It is clear that the programme had a significant impact on accelerating
the process of change, ensuring it was relatively peaceful, legitimising
the opposition and providing protection and financial assistance
to civil society. An evaluation conducted in 1996 found that:
"There is a consensus amongst all the people involved
in or affected by the European Special Programme (ESP) that particularly
during the first phase, it had a significant positive impact on
political developments in the country and that it accelerated
the demise of apartheid. The weight of relatively united Europe
behind an aid programme aimed at supporting the elements of change
in South African society was also very important because what
was at stake was the success of the transition. "
Source: Evaluation of the European Special Programme
on South Africa, Main Report, SPM Consultants, October 1996.
34. The EC continues to demonstrate its commitment to
South Africa by supporting economic development, water and sanitation
programmes, the SADC HIV-AIDS programme—which is regarded
as one of the EU's most efficient—and support for social
housing. All contracts are signed with local NGOs and there is
consequently a real sense of ownership. One project that has been
particularly successful is the Human Rights Foundation, established
in 1995 and operational since 1996. The Foundation has been so
successful that it is now being used as a model in Nigeria.
35. Commenting on the EC's support for human rights in
Nigeria, South Africa and Liberia, one Senior Commission official
spoke of how, "the Commission was very well respected—when
we spoke in international fora we were listened to. We had an
entry ticket and you could easily see the value added. Of course,
we had no commercial interest, and no vested interests and people
respected that. If you can de-link your commercial interests from
your political interests I think that gives you a real weight.
People understood that in a politically sensitive area you sometimes
have to make your own rules—it's a balancing act when people's
lives may be in danger. In Nigeria, we had to create special budget
lines which increased our support for civil society, freedom of
the press and the environment, and this worked in spite of the
military dictatorship. We found imaginative ways of helping people.
In a country like Nigeria the EU has a very high and good profile
because of our special knowledge of the situation—a knowledge
which no Member State could claim. I think if you speak to anyone
from that era, everyone will have a good word to say about the
European Union. "
36 . On Friday 23 June, The European Community and Member
States signed a new 20-year Partnership Agreement with the African,
Caribbean and Pacific States in Cotonou, Benin. The Cotonou Agreement
will replace the Lome Convention, in place since 1975, and aims
at creating a more favourable context for sustainable development
and poverty reduction, to be achieved through political dialogue,
development aid and closer economic and trade co-operation. It
is based on a respect for human rights, democratic principles
and the rule of law, and on good governance, and aims to encourage
greater participation by civil society, the private sector and
trade unions. The agreement must now be approved by the European
Parliament and ratified by Member States. The Council of ACP Ministers,
meeting in Benin from 19 to 23 June 2000, heralded the new partnership
agreement as an innovative approach to combating poverty, promote
sustainable development and work towards the gradual integration
of ACP countries into the multilateral trading system and the
world economy.
37. From a personal perspective, I have recently visited
Zambia, Angola and the Solomon Islands where there is further
evidence that EU policies and programmes have had a positive impact
on the ground. In the Solomon Isles support for fisheries and
rural training, as well as work with displaced people have been
invaluable. In Angola, unlike many bilateral programmes, the EU
is heavily involved in both the delivery of aid through the World
Food Programme, is now funding long term land mine clearance projects,
and is dealing with issues related to the return of displaced
people to their villages.
Mrs Glenys Kinnock MEP
June 2000
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