Reforms
8. Acknowledging its weaknesses and inefficiencies in the area
of development assistance, the European Commission began an initial
process of reform in 1998 with the establishment of the Common
Service for External Relations (SCR)—the precursor to EuropeAid—to
implement European aid. Following the resignation of the Santer
Commission in 1999, the Commission was reorganised, with European
development assistance planned and managed by a combination of
the Directorate General (DG) for External Relations, DG Development,
and EuropeAid. ECHO, which manages European Humanitarian Assistance,
is the responsibility of the Development Commissioner, but is
administratively autonomous. ECHO has in fact been affected
only marginally by the reform process, but, having been highly
critical of it in the past,[12]
we were pleased to hear that substantial improvements have been
made and that ECHO was performing well in Afghanistan and the
surrounding region.[13]
9. In April 2000, the Commission issued a statement on development
policy which outlined a comprehensive approach to development,
focussed on poverty reduction.[14]
The statement on development policy, and a subsequent joint Council
and Commission statement,[15]
established poverty reduction as the central objective of EC development
programmes and other EC programmes in developing countries. In
May 2000 an initial reform programme was outlined to improve the
quality and speed of delivery of projects, ensure sound financial
management, and increase the impact of European development assistance.[16]
In February, and then in May 2001, the Commission produced a rolling
programme of action, setting out clearly the reform programme
in terms of aims, actions, expected results, an indicative timetable,
and the progress made.[17]
10. As regards programming and the planning of development interventions,
the key innovation has been the establishment of guidelines for
the production of Country and Regional Strategy Papers. As a new
approach to programming, Country Strategy Papers (CSPs) are intended
to focus on poverty, to be comprehensive, to emphasise country
ownership, to promote work-sharing and complementarity, to involve
consultation with civil society organisations, to focus on a limited
number of areas, and to incorporate a number of cross-cutting
issues such as human rights, gender equality, and environmental
concerns.[18] An Inter-service
Quality Support Group (IQSG) is charged with reviewing the strategy
papers and promoting best practice.
11. On 1 January 2001, the EuropeAid Cooperation Office was established
as a single department to handle the EC's external aid, with the
exception of pre-accession programmes, humanitarian activities,
macro-financial aid, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and
the Rapid Reaction Facility. The intention was to rationalise
the management and implementation of development assistance, by
moving further away from a geographical assignment of responsibilities
to DGs—the arrangement in which DG External Relations deals
with non-ACP countries, and DG Development deals with ACP countries—and
integrating the various stages of the project cycle.[19]
DG Development and DG External Relations are now charged with
the programming phase of the project cycle —policy and strategies—for
ACP and non-ACP countries respectively. EuropeAid is focussed
on the remaining five stages of the project cycle, right through
to evaluation. EuropeAid is managed by a board comprising Chris
Patten (Chairman) representing DG External Relations, Poul Nielson
(Chief Executive Officer) representing DG Development, Pascal
Lamy representing DG Trade, Pedro Solbes Mira representing DG
Economic and Financial Affairs, and Günther Verheugen representing
DG Enlargement. At the field level are the Commission's Delegations.
Formally, all Delegations are responsible to DG External Relations;
in practice, they are dealt with by EuropeAid. Figure 2 shows
these arrangements, highlighting: firstly, the division of programming
responsibilities for ACP and non-ACP countries between DG External
Relations and DG Development; secondly, the split between programming
and subsequent stages of the project cycle; and thirdly, EuropeAid's
complex management structure and position between the DGs and
the Delegations.
12. The devolution of project management towards the Commission's
Delegations in partner countries—a process which is often
termed deconcentration—is a further key aspect of the reform
process. Echoing the principle of subsidiarity, this move is intended
to give Delegations greater responsibility and authority for the
implementation of EC programmes, and to allow them to work more
closely with other actors at the local level. The principle is
that "everything that can be better managed or decided locally,
close to the field, should not be managed or decided in Brussels".[20]
In addition to improving the implementation of European development
assistance, EuropeAid has the task of clearing the accumulated
backlog of old (pre-1995) and dormant (not resulting in payments
within two years) commitments, reducing the number of budget lines
to prevent further accumulation of management problems, simplifying
and harmonising its contracting procedures, and improving the
Commission's ability to evaluate its development assistance programmes.
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