18 EC DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE
IN 2008
(30779)
11863/09
+ ADD 1
COM(09) 296
| Commission Annual Report 2009 on the European Community's Development and and External Assistance Policies and their Implementation 2008
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| Legal base | —
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| Document originated | 30 June 2009
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| Deposited in Parliament |
10 July 2008 |
| Department | International Development
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| Basis of consideration |
EM of 20 July 2009 |
| Previous Committee Report |
None; but see (29779) 11137/08: HC 16-xxxvi (2007-8), chapter 12 (26 November 2008)
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| Discussed in Council | 27 July 2009 General Affairs and External Relations Council
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared, but further information requested
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Background
18.1 The overall objectives of European Community development
policy and external assistance are set out in Art 177 EC. Each
year, the Commission produces an annual report on the activities
carried out there under.
The Annual Report
18.2 This Report covers the activities under the European Community's
external assistance programme in 2008. It consists of a 10 page
Summary Report and a detailed 219-page annex in the form of a
Commission Staff Working Document.
18.3 The Report's Summary looks at activity in 2008
under five main headings:
— A
truly global dimension;
— Getting the policies right;
— More and better aid;
— Focus on results;
— Working together.
18.4 Soaring food and energy prices and the global
financial crisis posed new challenges. The Commission sees itself
as having responded swiftly, highlighting in particular the €1
billion (£0.85 billion) EU Food Facility: "Responding
in a flexible and effective way to the situation as it unfolds
will remain a key objective for 2009".
18.5 In 2008, the EU was again the biggest international
donor, providing almost 60% of global aid. The Report states that
the value of funds committed during 2008 reached €9.33 billion
(£7.95 billion), an increase of more than 90% in the rate
of annual commitments since 2001. Africa continues to receive
most new commitments with €5.2 billion in 2008 compared to
€3.6 billion (£3.06 billion) in 2007. For Asia the corresponding
totals are €1.9 billion (£1.61 billion) in 2008 and
€1.7 billion (£1.44 billion) in 2007. Total disbursements
also increased in 2008 to €9.1 billion (£7.75 billion)
from €8.4 billion (£7.15 billion) in 2007.
18.6 The Commission also highlights the deepening
of the EU's relations with partners across the world, particularly
regarding issues such as climate change, energy, trade liberalisation
and the attainment of the UN the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).[64] It notes
its efforts to promote more regional cooperation and economic
integration among the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) partners,
particularly through negotiations for regional Economic Partnership
Agreements.
18.7 The importance of maintaining commitments to
the MDGs despite the difficult economic context is emphasised
repeatedly. The Report highlights the EU's own contribution, including
the EU Agenda for Action on MDGs (adopted in June 2008), which
set milestones for 2010 to make up for lost ground on core social
and environmental targets. The Commission also:
— increased
efforts to integrate gender, the environment and the rights of
children and indigenous peoples into the development process;
— "moved democratic governance to
the top of its agenda as a marker and reference point in planning
and delivering its technical and financial assistance";
— "worked hard to make its aid more
effective by creating coherence and synergy between the relevant
geographic and thematic instruments which promote democracy and
human rights".
18.8 Under More and better aid, the Commission
notes that the EU "has been the driving force behind efforts
to make aid more effective"; the Accra Agenda for Action
(produced by the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness,
in Ghana in September 2008) "sits well with the EU's own
aspirations". The Commission sees all this and continuing
discussions with Member States on how to carry the agenda forward
as "a question of value for money — for the beneficiary
countries and the European taxpayer". In 2008, the Commission
"worked intensively to reform its technical cooperation and
project implementation units", with the focus on developing
local capacity and ownership and "a strong result-orientation".
18.9 Budget support is the "preferred delivery
vehicle when conditions allow", and amounted to 39%, or €3.86
billion, of all EC budget and EDF commitments in 2008. Beneficiary
countries must demonstrate their ability to manage public finances.
Effective public finance management (PFM) "is essential to
ensure that governments are accountable for European taxpayers'
money entrusted to them for the benefit of their population."
The Commission has committed itself to make budget support "more
effective and transparent by strengthening PFM assessments, improving
the structure and formulation of financial agreements, refining
further the eligibility criteria for budget support and risk assessments,
and improving reporting systems."
18.10 The Report includes a synthesis of the main
lessons of the Commission's Results Oriented Monitoring (ROM)
system — a "transparent, rapid and comprehensive review
of how a project is progressing at a given point in time [which
is] carried out in all regions of external cooperation by independent
experts [and uses a] well-structured and robust methodology …
After eight years, ROM has proved its usefulness not only at project
level to inform on project performance, but also at macro level
to support management decisions, and at programming level to provide
qualitative data for analysis."
18.11 The report concludes with a section on Working
together, in which the Commission reviews its own endeavours to
increase aid effectiveness by working with and through other international
organisations where this is the most effective means of delivery,
and emphasises the need for EU external assistance policy to focus
"on achieving concrete results, enhancing the flexibility
of its aid instruments and fostering action on regional integration."
The Government's view
18.12 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 20 July 2009,
the Minister of State at the Department for International Development
(Mr Gareth Thomas) says that "a consistent focus of UK attention
is that the Reports demonstrate a clear link between EC development
policy and meeting the MDGs." He notes that the Report "does
stress the MDGs more strongly than in the past" and that,
with the UN MDG Review Summit in September 2010, "the UK
will be pushing for the 2010 Annual Report to include a focus
on EU performance against its aid commitments."
18.13 The Minister goes on to say that "a key
concern" in 2008 was that this year's Annual Report "should
be more results-focused". He professes himself "pleased
to note that the Commission has made a substantial effort to demonstrate
real impact on the ground", and notes that the Report "introduces
some useful text on specific sectors, country/region specific
Success Stories and, in some cases, the approximate numbers of
beneficiaries." He sees this as "a good start and mirrors
DFID practice in the use of Case Studies", and says that
he "will urge the Commission to consolidate this approach
for the 2010 Annual Report."
18.14 Less positively, the Minister notes that the
Report "does not contain gender disaggregated data",
and says the he "will need to continue pushing for this as
part of the Commission's Gender Equality Action Plan."
18.15 The Minister then notes that:
"The Report makes a persuasive case for
the EC as a leading driver of more effective aid, highlighting
initiatives for: improving policy coherence; increased predictability
of aid through the innovation of 'MDG Contracts'; and in ensuring
a strong outcome from the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness
(the Accra Agenda for Action).[65]
The Report does not however assess EC performance against the
various Paris Declaration[66]
indicators. We will press for this in the next Report."
18.16 The Minister also notes that the Report has
more detail than previously on the breakdown of new budget support
commitments, including by country and instrument., drawing attention
not only to budget support now being "the EC's 'preferred
delivery vehicle'" but also to "the important caveat
of 'when conditions allow'."
18.17 Overall, the Minister supports this Report,
"particularly the new focus on demonstrating impact",
and sees the messages in it as "also largely in line with
UK external assistance objectives."
18.18 The Minister concludes by noting that the Report
was to be considered by the 27 July 2009 General Affairs and External
Relations Council (GAERC).
Conclusion
18.19 When we considered last year's Report, we
noted that the then Minister had laid out clearly what he would
be looking for in this year's Report:
— clear
links with the MDGs and the trends defined by the European Consensus
on Development;
— a more results based focus, including
a sound Results Oriented Monitoring system;
— the systematic drawing of lessons
from those results in order to respond more effectively to any
deficiencies;
— further information about the implementation
of EC General Budgetary Support in all the beneficiary countries
concerned;
— wherever possible, disaggregation
of data, particularly by gender.[67]
18.20 With the exception of the last tiret, the
focus of the Report continues to move in the right direction.
The Minister has similarly laid out the areas upon which he will
be focussing in the coming year, and upon which we ask him to
report progress in his Explanatory Memorandum on the 2010 Report.
18.21 In the meantime, we clear the document,
which we are drawing to the attention of the House, and of the
International Development Committee, because of because of the
widespread interest in EU development work and, in particular,
the crucial role of the European Commission and its delegations
in this field.
18.22 We also note that there appears to be no
reference to the document in the official report of the 27 July
GAERC, and ask the Minister to clarify if and when the Council
is to consider it, and what Conclusions he expects the Council
to adopt.
64 UN millennium development goals to be achieved by
2015 - the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achievement
of universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and
female empowerment, reduction of child mortality, improvement
of maternal health, combat of HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases,
environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development
- each with its targets and indicators. Back
65
Text available at http://www.adb.org/Documents/Aid-Effectiveness/consultative-draft.pdf
Back
66
The Paris Declaration, endorsed on 2 March 2005, is
an international agreement to which over one hundred Ministers,
Heads of Agencies and other Senior Officials adhered and
committed their countries and organisations to continue to
increase efforts in harmonisation, alignment and managing aid
for results with a set of monitorable actions and indicators.
See http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_3236398_35401554_1_1_1_1,00.html
for further information on the Declaration and on aid effectiveness
in general. Back
67
See headnote: see (29779) 11137/08: HC 16-xxxvi (2007-8), chapter
12 (26 November 2008). Back
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