Examination of Witnesses (Questions 61
- 79)
TUESDAY 18 DECEMBER 2001
MS HELEN
O'CONNELL, MS
COSTANZA DE
TOMA AND
MS RUTH
COLES
Chairman
Good morning. Thank you for coming and giving
evidence. When I look at the briefing for a day like today I feel
that an NGO would make quite a lot of money out of producing a
book with a guide to development acronyms, what all these things
stand for, and words like "budgetisation", a kind of
development dictionary. I suspect that today, and judging by the
packed public gallery, this is going to be a bit of a conversation
where I hope that in some way you can help us better understand
this whole secret garden of what is actually happening in Europe;
and how we ensure that it is a secret garden that is more widely
understood. I think our impression is that the European Union
is part way through the process of a period of reform. I think
we would be interested in your impressions on—is it actually
working? Colleagues will have a number of questions, but if at
any time you feel there are bits we are missing out, please speak
up. In a sense, the only questions we can ask are based on the
knowledge we have; if we have not got the right bits of knowledge
we may not be asking the right questions.
Hugh Bayley
61. I would like to launch off with the poverty
focus. I just wonder to what extent the NGOs you represent have
seen a change in emphasis; a change in focus; a change in what
has been funded by the EU since they adopted in policy terms a
clearer policy commitment to poverty alleviation?
(Ms O'Connell) Good morning. Thank you very much for
the opportunity to come and talk to you. BOND, as you know, is
a network of 230 NGOs. We cover a wide spectrum of organisations,
and many of us in that group are very ardent EU-watchers—others
are less concerned. They also are as puzzled about the acronyms
as some of you may be. For those of us who have worked on EU issues
for many years, we were very pleased when the EU agreed its new
development policy at the end of last year, because for the first
time we had a very coherent overarching policy statement that
put poverty in the top line linked to questions of respect for
human rights, democracy, equality between men and women and so
forth. Up until that point the EU had a series of rather disparate
policies on particular issues—for example, policies on health,
education or trade—but this was the first time there was
an overarching policy. Side by side with the agreement of that
policy—which is a strong statement and we are happy with
it, even though clearly we would have liked it to go further in
some areas—there is a strong commitment to mainstreaming
the issues that we have been working on for many years; which
means through everything they do poverty has to be the top line;
that they have to take account of issues to do with governance,
how developing countries relate to their citizens, issues to do
with democracy, environment and all these other very important
issues. Side by side with the new policy came a whole reform process,
and the reform process is still quite young. Many of us would
argue that it is long overdue but, nonetheless, it is only now
happening and it is only one year since the reform process started.
To some extent it is too soon to say whether the policy and the
practice has been significantly shifted, but there are many encouraging
aspects. We have a good policy and there is a very clear commitment
on the part of the Commission and the Member States to see that
that policy is implemented. On the more practical side, and my
colleagues will come in on that, the establishment of EuropeAid
(which is the new agency dealing with all of the disbursement
of the funds in effect, everything from agreeing the initial project
design right through to implementation, monitoring and evaluation)
that is a very positive thing. Of course, like all these positive
things, there is always a downside. The downside in this particular
case is that there is a split between DG Development, which is
responsible for overall policy and strategy, and EuropeAid, which
is responsible for the implementation. We have a concern there
that the lesson learning and the feedback from practice to policy
is maybe not as strong as it should be. In all development activities
you have to have good policy to put into practice, but then you
need also the feedback from practice back into policy, and that
is one area of the reforms we are slightly anxious about. Another
important trend that is happening right now, which we will go
into in more detail if you like, is what is known as "deconcentration",
which we would call in this country "decentralisation",
from the centre i.e. Brussels to developing countries. The EU,
as you know, has delegations in almost all developing countries
as well as developed countries. There is a process which has just
started of giving the delegations in developing countries greater
authority and greater responsibility for administering/spending
aid money. This process has just started. They have deconcentrated,
decentralised, the first 22 of their delegations, and the plan
is over the next three years to reach 86 delegations. This is,
again, a very good thing because it puts the decision making much
closer to developing countries. It means there is greater possibility
for dialogue between EU delegations and the people concerned.
It opens up the possibility of a lot more local staff, for example.
But, as always, there is an issue about whether the delegations
have enough staff; will they have the right staff; will they have
expertise in poverty analysis, in social analysis and gender mainstreaming;
will they be able to step outside their administrative functions
to deal with the wider issues of poverty reduction? To sum up
all those viewpoints: good policy; many things have been set in
train for good implementation; but with all of it we have some
qualifications and some questions.
62. Before your colleagues come in, as I suspect
they may want to, can I simply say that my colleague, Ann Clwyd,
will run through with you a number of issues in relation to EuropeAid
and the restructuring and deconcentration in a few moments. Can
we keep the focus very much on whether the commitment to poverty
allevation as an overarching goal is actually changing policy.
In your evidence you give us a pie chart on page 6 which shows
a split of where the money goes. As a result of a change of policy,
which provides a sharper poverty focus, I would expect this pie
chart to change. Could you give us any feel of the timescale over
which the broad slices of the pie will decrease? What should we
regard as good firm progress towards a clearer poverty focus in
terms of growth areas and reductions? In practical terms, how
quickly can these changes happen?
(Ms de Toma) I have followed the budget quite closely
over a number of years. This is a difficult question that we are
grappling with as well. The present focus is still not satisfactory,
as you can see. This pie chart was based on proposals by the Commission
for the preliminary draft budget which was issued last April.
Things have changed slightly now with Parliament voting the final
budget for next year just last week. The main changes actually
to the regional focus which I think you are interested in mostly
are that more money has been allocated to Asia and Latin America—mostly
as a result of the recent international crisis, I would say, especially
regarding money to Asia. A lot of that money will be spent on
Afghanistan and the neighbouring region. In terms of long-term
changes and the poverty focus, we are quite frustrated about it,
but the problem is not to do with the Commission though, it is
broader. As you will know, the allocations to the regional envelopes
are set out in financial perspectives—sectoral and regional
budgetary ceilings—that the EU agreed in 2000, and covering
the period 2000-2006. We can shift money around marginally now
in the present period, but no major change will be able to take
place before 2006 until the next financial perspective will be
negotiated and will cover the next six years from 2006-12. These
financial perspectives are obviously negotiated by the Member
States with the European Parliament and with the Commission making
proposals. For instance, the cooperation with developing countries
in Asia has been set out in the regulation for cooperation with
Asia and Latin America. They have been joined and now will be
separated. This is up for renewal this year and, as I have said,
they have decided to negotiate two separate regulations—one
for Asia and one for Latin America. There is only so much we can
negotiate in terms of financial allocations to Asia; because,
although the regulation itself is up for renewal, the whole financial
budget is still regulated by the broader financial perspectives.
Again, it is quite frustrating because it is limited negotiation,
limited space for manoeuvre. In the long-term what we are working
towards is mobilising the political will within all the Member
States to change the overall poverty focus in 2006, but not that
much can be done before. We can work towards it, and that is what
we are doing here.
(Ms O'Connell) If I may add very briefly to that.
As NGOs we are campaigning for 70 per cent of European Community
aid to go to the poorest countries. We recognise that it may take
four or five years to get to that point.
63. What percentage is it now?
(Ms de Toma) It is just below 50 per cent.
64. Can I just ask one final question. I understand
there is a kind of spring clean going on of the EU budget to reduce
the number of individual budget lines, which they would argue
would increase transparency. There is a worry that you could lose
the guarantee of funding, you could lose protection for certain
budget lines for instance on food security or human rights. What
views do the NGOs have? Should we be specifically trying to protect
items such as that? Can you use this process more generally to
focus more of the budget in the short term on poverty alleviation?
(Ms de Toma) Yes, I think you can. The whole problem
with sectoral lines is that they have been, as you say, subject
to this rationalisation process. However, these sectoral lines
are not very big. They have been very useful to NGOs because they
allow more flexibility in terms of disbursement as well, and in
terms of actions, guidelines and projects that can be funded under
these budget lines. For instance, a very effective and efficient
budget line has been the reproductive health and HIV/AIDS budget
line, which over the years has been very, very efficiently managed
and has allowed NGOs to get funding for very innovative projects.
That is not the case under regional budget lines. In fact, the
whole point of having thematic lines is to allow these new innovative
flexible projects to be implemented and then, if they do work,
for them to be scaled up and included in the regional programmes.
That is why we are fighting to keep these lines. They are politically
important because obviously these sectoral lines are largely within
the area of human and social development; and obviously politically
it is important for the Commission and the Community to keep these
lines and to ensure that funds are allocated under these lines.
That is why the European Parliament has bravely defended these
lines for years. In terms of the broader spring clean, as you
call it, we feel that too much emphasis has gone into the rationalisation
of these lines, i.e. cutting down the lines, we do not think that
is to be called rationalisation. What we said, as I am sure you
will have read in our paper, is that there are still a number
of both regional and sectoral lines within the development budget
Category 4 that have hardly anything to do with poverty focus.
Just to mention next year's budget—allocations to Malta,
Cyprus and Turkey amount to
20 million, and these are pre-accession countries
that will come in with the rest of Eastern European countries,
which now have a separate category as from 2000. Other lines—for
instance migration, cooperation with industrialised countries,
I can quote others—are still part of the development budget,
and fisheries for instance which is important to some extent,
and a lot of money goes into that. Over 100 million euros are
allocated under these lines. In terms of spring cleaning I think
rationalisation should be broader and not just focus as it has
up until now on diminishing the number of lines.
Tony Worthington
65. Could you take us through the arguments
about budgetisation?
(Ms de Toma) As you know, the European Development
Fund is extremely important. Basically allocations to Africa,
the Caribbean and Pacific countries, but specifically to sub-Saharan
Africa which is one of the poorest areas in the world, come from
the European Development Fund. In fact, I think it accounts for
half the ODA disbursements of the EU so it is hugely important.
At the moment it is governed by a different set of procedures
because it is not part of the budget. Likewise, contributions
to the European Development Fund are not regulated by a specific
formula by which Member States make contributions to the budget.
Contributions to the European Development Fund are arbitrary,
in fact quite untransparent. We were just talking about it earlier.
I have never come across a set of data giving specific contributions
from the Member States. The problem there, as you will know, is
that there is no parliamentary scrutiny over the European Development
Fund, as there is for the budget, and that is the main problem.
As Helen was saying earlier, we have had an overarching development
policy but we did not have an overarching development fund under
the budget. That has created enormous problems in terms of consistency
and coherence of the budget, which is still quite bitty. I think
it creates problems with the Commission itself when we ask the
Commission to provide detailed information of how much is spent
in different sectors for human/social development. They always
seem to be unable to collate the data from different sources.
There are different arguments. I guess the parliamentary scrutiny
one is the most important and that would involve ACP countries
as well—African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
66. You are talking such commonsense, then why
is it not happening?
(Ms O'Connell) The Member States of the EU (who are
always the most powerful body in the EU despite anything people
might like to say about the Commission being autonomous and Parliament
being powerful) have always had their own political agenda. They
are the most powerful body, and it has suited the Member States
up until now to keep funds for the African, Caribbean and Pacific
countries under a separate agreement—first of all, the Lomé
Agreement and now the Cotonou Agreement—and there is no
interest in giving greater power over the total budget to the
Commission.
67. Has the British Government taken the same
line?
(Ms O'Connell) Yes, up until now the British Government
is in favour of keeping the European Development Fund separate.
That line might be shifting; but as of now the European Development
Fund is separate. I have not seen any evidence that there is a
shift towards putting it into the overall budget, which would
make absolute sense; because running the separate budget lines
all under separate headings and under separate agreements certainly
makes reporting very difficult and makes transparency extremely
difficult.
68. Say we were curious about how money was
being spent—what information could we get?
(Ms O'Connell) You can get a lot of information but
it may not make a lot of sense, to be honest.
69. You would never have someone say, "It's
none of your business?"
(Ms O'Connell) No. It is possible through the Parliament
and through the Member States to get access to any information
you want; but it is very difficult to build up a whole picture.
You get pieces of the jigsaw, and if you ask a question like,
"How much are you spending on governance?" it is almost
impossible to say because it is some here, some there, some over
here, and you cannot do the very clear annual reporting that,
say, DFID or other Member States are able to do. I think it is
very important that the budgetisation of putting the European
Development Fund into the main budget is pressed, and that is
something I hope your Committee would take up.
Mr Robathan
70. It seems a rather bizarre situation, I have
to say, but I see exactly the sense of putting into one budget
but obviously it is an historic thing. Given the criticisms of
the general EU budget and disbursement made, that therefore poses
the question: which is disbursed better, the European Development
Fund or the general budget? Secondly, do you think parliamentary
scrutiny of the general budget has been effective, given the criticisms
of everybody, including yourselves?
(Ms de Toma) I think in terms of disbursements under
the EDF there have been problems as well. I know one of the things
that DFID is working on is increasing disbursements. The problem
there has been on the receiving end, in terms of absorption capacity
of the beneficiary countries, so there is more work to do. I could
not say which was better in terms of disbursements, whether it
was the budget or the EDF. There are problems both ways. You have
to look at the receiving end as well. In terms of parliamentary
scrutiny, I think it has been successful. It always keeps the
Commission on its toes and, indeed, the draft budget, let us say,
and the final budget are always quite different. I do not know
if you call that scrutiny or if you just call that parliamentary
influence. Parliament is the final authority, along with the Council
as well, on the budget. Over the years I think they have managed
to maintain a poverty focus. If the European Parliament had not
worked on the budget as it has then I think we would see a different
budget.
71. I thought you had just established that
that was what the problem was?
(Ms de Toma) Yes, but they have always made sure that
money was allocated to social sectors. I have seen that over the
years, even before we had an overarching policy. I think the poverty
focus has been a priority within the Parliament for quite some
time, even before it was made final.
(Ms O'Connell) May I just add something on the European
Development Fund. One of its strong points, coming under the Lomé
Agreement between the EU and what was then the 71 African, Caribbean
and Pacific countries, was the whole idea that the ACP countries
would decide what they wanted to prioritise in terms of which
programmes to fund, which programmes they wanted funding for,
and then the EU would provide the money. There was that very important
commitment and element of ownership by developing countries of
which sectors they wanted to put resources into. That is an element
which I think is quite important; it did not always work in practice.
The developing countries did not always have the capacity to actually
set a very clear, indicative programme for the five years in question.
Nonetheless, there was that political point about ownership, which
is important and is coming back around again in the new processes
that the European Commission has established; which is Country
Strategy Papers, where every developing country will write a Country
Strategy Paper and that is meant to be consulted with civil society
and with the private sector; which sets out through a process
of consultation and discussion what the priority sectors are for
the next five years and what they would like funding for from
the European Community in particular. That is tied into the wider
process of the World Bank and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers,
which I hope we can get a chance to come back on later. At this
point, there are some aspects of the EDF which are valuable and
worth keeping, even when it is budgetised; but I think overall
Costanza's point is right that there were implementation problems
and disbursement problems with the main budget and the EDF, and
also scrutiny problems.
Ann Clwyd
72. Having been a member of a budget committee
of the European Parliament on behalf of my respective committee,
I wondered if you had any assessment of the role of development
committee representatives on that budget committee; because, as
you know, that process of agreeing the budget is a very intense
one and takes place every year. It is up to the representatives
of the individual committee to fight the corner for their committee
on the budget committee. I wondered what your assessment was of
the role of the development committee in that process; and also
what is your own relationship with that development committee?
How often do you meet them? What sort of interaction is there
between you and them? I think parliamentary scrutiny can be much
stronger in the European Parliament on matters like the budget
than it is here. I am surprised that you take that view, almost
as though that development committee had no impact in the budget
process.
(Ms de Toma) I have worked with the development committee
for quite a few years and that is what I was trying to say earlier,
that even before the overarching policy I think the development
committee has always done a really good job in maintaining a poverty
focus and fighting for human and social development. I think overall
we have always had an excellent relationship with the development
committee. We often meet with them as independent agencies and
now as BOND as well. We are asked for our opinion always on the
budget, and in fact we start working on the budget every year
as soon as the preliminary draft budget is made available by the
Commission and, as I said earlier, that is usually around April/May
time. We prepare a position paper and we consult broadly here
at the UK level and then we feed our position into a more general
European position of European NGO platforms and networks; and
usually the development committee takes that NGO position very
seriously. This year, for instance, we worked very closely both
with the rapporteur and with the shadow rapporteur across party
lines, across nationality lines, very, very well; and they took
on most of our suggestions which were generally maintaining poverty
lines and cutting non-poverty lines, which are strange non-poverty
lines that I mentioned earlier that still seem to be part of the
budget. In terms of relationships with the budgets committee,
that can be extremely frustrating. We have had a mixed relationship
with the budgets committee. My personal view of the budgets committee
has been that they are obviously quite obsessed with numbers,
and so they should be, I guess, because they scrutinise the budget;
but sometimes we feel that the quality of work that is being done
with the development committee is somewhat lost and very much
diluted in the budgets committee; but, then again, what can you
do.
73. How intense is the engagement of the development
committee representatives in the budget process?
(Ms de Toma) Very intense. Negotiation can go on for
months and months.
(Ms O'Connell) It is one voice amongst many. This
relates to and reflects the wider political agenda of the EU where,
despite what we might think, international development and poverty
elimination is not the most important issue. There are big issues
around enlargement, around monetary union and around the EU's
own future and the whole discussions about constitution and so
on, and common, foreign and security policy. When it comes to
the crunch, development is not top of the agenda and, inevitably,
it is not given the attention it deserves. One could argue that
is not unique to the European Union. That development across the
globe amongst the rich countries is not the most important issue.
What we can hope for is, as a minimum, we get greater policy coherence
so that anything the EU decides to do in other sectors, whether
it is to do with its own affairs, security policy, to do with
trade or with enlargement, do not undermine development and that,
ideally, they should also promote development. Of course the big
problem is the Common Agricultural Policy which is the one big
area which has still to be tackled which does undermine development,
as we know. It is one voice amongst many and it is one issue amongst
many.
Mr Battle
74. On budgetisation, you said that Member States'
governments were not in favour of the budgetisation of EDF. Is
there pressure from ACP countries for budgetisation? When I first
worked on the background of Lomé I and Lomé II the
ACP were not themselves that much in favour. Has that changed?
(Ms O'Connell) The ACP are happy with the arrangement
as it is now. To get a move towards budgetisation the ACP countries
would have to be encouraged and have to be persuaded that they
were not going to lose out. Having a discrete pot of money which
is specifically for them and over which they have a certain amount
of say and control puts them in a stronger position than maybe
competing with a general budget alongside every other demand.
75. If I could move on to the whole question
of deconcentration, as it is called, and the Country Strategy
Papers and working up the strategy papers. Delegation: as you
mentioned in your opening comments about delegations needing the
right staff, the right expertise for poverty analysis, could you
say a bit more about that? There are 22 in the frame now, 86 to
go—will they make it? What is your general view? Is it serious?
(Ms O'Connell) Our general view is that deconcentration
is a positive move for all the reasons I said at the beginning
about putting decision making closer to the people concerned,
opening up the possibilities of a much greater dialogue between
the developing country governments and people and the EU delegates.
The problem is that when it comes to our concerns around social
sectors, around social analysis, around poverty analysis, around
people-centred development, rights-centred development, these
are not the issues that the European Commission has the greatest
expertise in. One of the things we found out recently was that
in the pre-posting training—of officials moving from Brussels
to the delegations—the priority for training was all around
administration and corruption. They are very important issues,
but not by any means the only issues that they should be dealing
with. We are worried that the spending of the money, and the quantities
of money will take precedence over issues of quality. We would
argue that at least in every region, if not in every delegation,
you need to have serious expertise on poverty analysis, on social
development; you need to be able to call on experts who are strong
on issues of gender quality, strong on health education—the
social sectors. There is very little evidence that is the case
at the moment. Another issue is this whole business of policy
evaporation between the top and the bottom. The good policies
tend to evaporate and you get decisions made by people on the
ground effectively following their own guidelines and their own
idea of what the policy means in practice; and it is quite difficult
keeping that tight monitoring between the policies that have been
agreed and what is happening on the ground. You have a lot more
space for individuals to pursue their own agendas; to interpret
policy as they see fit. That is a concern of ours. The deconcentration
process will go on. It has already started and they are pushing
it through very quickly. A big issue is to do with how it is going
to be funded. To set up strong delegations in 86 countries, fully
staffed with up to 20, 30 or 50 staff takes considerable resources,
considerable amounts of training and management. We are worried
really whether the Commission has the funds to do a good job,
and whether it is going to do adequate monitoring to make sure
that the initial deconcentration works well, so they can learn
some lessons there; and we are worried about the overall management
of this process.
76. If that is the delegations going out to
the countries, what about within the countries—their engagement
of civil society and NGOs locally in the drawing up of the country's
strategies. Very often the World Bank send experts in to draw
up the strategies that need not involve local people. Is that
going to be replicated by the European Commission, or have they
got a better idea?
(Ms de Toma) Hopefully not!
(Ms O'Connell) We were very hopeful when the Cotonou
Agreement was signed. We were very hopeful about the whole process
of the Country Strategy Papers. The principle is that developing
countries own the process; they decide amongst themselves with
their own citizens what the priorities are. There is full and
adequate consultation with the private sector, with NGOs, with
trade unions and other interested bodies. They would then, from
that, agree what their priority sectors were. Of course, practice
is far from perfect. What is happening in effect is that the drawing
up of the EU Country Strategy Paper has now become absorbed within
the wider World Bank work. The World Bank is saying to all heavily
indebted low income countries, that they need to draw up a Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper. The principles of this are quite good;
it is meant to be about ownership; it is meant to be about consultation;
it is meant to be that developing countries themselves would set
out what their national strategy is to reduce poverty; then donors
would come together—the World Bank, the EU, bilateral donors—and
they would fund the priority sectors. The reality on the ground
is that very little genuine consultation takes place. Sometimes
developing countries do not have either the will or capacity to
consult widely. There is in some countries a hostility to consultation,
and hostility to civil society; and in others there is a pretence
of supporting civil society but in practice it does not happen.
The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Bangladesh has been written
and we understand it has been written in Washington and not in
Bangladesh. The interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Angola
is being written. There is some consultation. One aspect of that
consultation was in June this year where the night before the
consultation meeting NGOs and civil society members were telephoned
and were asked, "Can you come to a meeting tomorrow to discuss
this strategy?" Clearly that is not serious, it is not adequate,
and I think as NGOs we have an important role to play. We work
with partners in developing countries, so one of the things we
are doing is making sure they know these processes are going on;
that they need to get involved; that they have more staff, time
and training to actually get involved more effectively. That is
rather a long answer. In summary, what is happening now in terms
of Country Strategy Papers and the World Bank is not good, but
we are hopeful that over the next three or four years that it
could improve dramatically and it could open doors for civil society
in developing countries to have a much greater say about what
they think is important, and which sectors (for example, health
education, sanitation) which area they feel should be given priority
for funds.
(Ms de Toma) I think it is important to know that
Commission delegations are not supposed to drive the process and
drive the consultation. From their own guidelines, they say they
are supposed to mediate the process and consultation between the
beneficiary country government and the local civil society. I
do not know whether it is just a way of saying, "We're not
responsible for it". In a way I guess it is right, because
obviously we would not want the Commission to lead and own the
process as they have in the past. Neither would we want for the
government to own and drive the process; it should be a joint
consultation; but this is what they say they are. When we say
we would like people in delegations with expertise in participatory
methodologies who know something about civil society and NGOs,
there could be external consultants, I guess, brought in to facilitate
the process as well. They do not need to be there on a continuous
basis. It could be a possibility, as Helen was saying, it looks
from the first Country Strategy Papers that there has not been
adequate consultation with them. Then again, the process has only
just started. A lot of the time the problem is that civil society
has not had time to organise itself or even NGOs. There is a lot
of work being done at the moment in ACP countries to get civil
society to organise itself in a forum under the Cotonou Agreement
to create national and regional civil society platforms precisely
to allow better consultation. A lot of work is being done on both
sides and that is why we are hopeful that it will happen. It will
take time. It is right for it to take time because if not it would
just be mechanic consultation—just tick the box, civil society
has been consulted.
Mr Robathan
77. I want to ask about delegations. You mentioned
delegations and their role. We in the last Parliament travelled
quite extensively around various places. It was a concern of mine
(and I will not put it any stronger because it would be rather
rude) which was certainly shared by at least two former members
of this Committee, that the delegations that the EU had in place
in many very important developing countries, where they really
needed a high quality of work, seemed to be rather more interested
in the comfort of their posting. They wanted a comfortable life
and that is quite understandable but there was not the dynamism
and the determination to get things done which we might have hoped
for. It was not just my impression. Somebody is nodding their
head! Sleepy, let us put it that way.
(Ms O'Connell) I would imagine if you visit many detached
offices of the aid management offices of DFID you may find cases
as well.
78. But not like this.
(Ms O'Connell) They do have a very good reputation.
I feel it is part of the whole culture of the European Commission
and the European Union that these delegations, up until now, have
had a rather low level role. They had some responsibility for
negotiating with the national government, and they had some responsibility
for disbursing money; but quite often, when it came to an important
decision or a controversial decision, the decision making was
taken out of their hands and taken back to Brussels. I think their
position was, as a minimum, unclear. They did not have the authority
and the responsibility that they are now being given. I feel also
they had several agendas. Up until now they had the agenda of
having a EU presence in the country, which is more like a diplomatic
or representation role. Then they have an agenda around trade
and promoting or facilitating EU trade in the country. They have
a cultural role and then, on top of that, they have a role to
do with development. From my experience of meeting delegations,
the development role was the one that was least important, or
least clear, and certainly had fewer staff than other areas. They
did not have full enough staff, or sufficient staff or the right
expertise of staff to do a good job. I think these are the kind
of issues that hopefully will be addressed in the future.
Ann Clwyd
79. You mentioned, when you were answering Hugh's
question, EuropeAid and you said there were positive developments
as a result of setting the office up at the beginning of this
year but there was also a downside. Could you go into some more
detail about the positive and the downside, and whether the setting
up of that office has clarified the relationship between DG External
Relations and DG Development?
(Ms de Toma) Generally speaking, we see the setting
up of EuropeAid as a positive development of the reform process.
It has clarified, I think, the relations (at least our relations)
with the European Commission. At least we now have the whole projects
cycle that Helen mentioned earlier, from the decisions on proposals
to the implementation of the projects, managed by one unit, one
office. That is better now from how it was before. It was divided
between DG Development and the previous office, which was the
common service. In terms of communication, as you know EuropeAid
is managed by a board of directors, which is formed by the commissioner
of trade, external relations, enlargement and also development
and humanitarian aid. Hopefully that will help communication.
I think the worry there is that this communication actually takes
place, because although the project cycle is now entirely managed
by EuropeAid and we now just deal with EuropeAid in terms of financing
proposals and everything, the link between policy practice might
still be weak. Now the Commission has a new policy of activity
based management, that is budgeting according to existing resources
in terms of staff and also financial resources for the management
of the projects. That is why communication between the policy
side of things and the practice side of things has to be even
stronger than before if they do want to implement this activity
based budgeting. We have probably not seen that yet in terms of
the problems we had with this year's budget just in terms of the
budget not really reflecting the priorities set out in the development
policy statement. Hopefully this will change. When we asked senior
officials in EuropeAid about the discrepancies they said that
obviously it would take time to change the balance, so we hope
to see that soon. In terms of the relative technical questions
I do not know if Ruth wants to say anything.
(Ms Coles) I was the previous Chair of BOND's Development
Finance Group and as such I was also the UK representative to
the European Funding Group which was part of the pan-European
development network called the Liaison Committee. This group met
principally with representatives of both EuropeAid and DG Development
and continues to do so. It has in effect been asked by EuropeAid
and DG Development to act as the main interlocutor between the
European Commission and European NGOs. Certainly we have felt
that EuropeAid is concerned with talking to us but in practice
quite often leaves it very much to the last minute, that we are
asked for opinions at a very late time and we are not given enough
time to comment on policy.
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