4 EU development assistance in Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene
(34335)
14028/12
SWD(12) 277
| Commission Staff Working Document: Meeting the challenge of rapidly increasing humanitarian needs in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
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Legal base |
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Document originated | 18 September 2012
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Deposited in Parliament | 19 October 2012
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Department | International Development
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Basis of consideration | EM of 1 November 2012
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Previous Committee Report | None
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Discussion in Council | To be determined
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Committee's assessment | Politically important
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Committee's decision | For debate in European Committee B, along with (34296): Court of Auditors' Special Report on EU Development Assistance for Drinking-Water Supply and Basic Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Countries[7]
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Background
4.1 The Commission says WASH stands for water, sanitation, hygiene,
and is one of the three main sectors of humanitarian operations
(the others being food and health). It sees climate change as
having a growing and significant impact on WASH among vulnerable
people; and says that humanitarian aid alone will not be able
to continue to address the rapidly growing needs. Improving resilience
and Linking Relief, Rehabilitation and Development (LRRD), the
Commission says, "vital to helping meet these needs before
they become humanitarian emergencies."[8]
The Commission Staff Working Document
4.2 The Commission notes that over the past decade humanitarian
WASH funding has increased thirtyfold. In recent years, the Commission
says, there have been 1.7 million deaths annually due to inadequate
WASH conditions and services. Water is also the key medium through
which the impact of climate change will be manifested. Population
growth and rapidly growing urban areas are increasing pressure
on local water resources. Consequently, needs are increasing even
more rapidly than the available funding. UNOCHA (United Nations
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) predicts
that by 2025 the number of people without access to safe water
will rise from just over one billion to two billion.
4.3 The Commission also notes that the EU is already
the biggest donor to humanitarian WASH, now allocating around
200 million each year from the EU budget. The Commission
has, it says, a number of comparative advantages in responding
to the changing frequency, scale and nature of humanitarian WASH
needs:
"First, for the essential life-saving first
phase following a disaster, the Commission has invested heavily
in improving the speed of response with its partners, the surge
capacity in the global WASH Cluster, and global logistics support.
This facilitates better needs assessments, more timely and appropriate
responses, better coordination, and overall it uses humanitarian
budgets more efficiently and effectively to help those in need.
In time of budgetary constraints, getting the best value for our
money is even more important.
"Second, the Commission, through its Humanitarian
Aid department (DG ECHO), co-ordinates an increasing number of
deployments through funding for humanitarian partners, and support
and facilitation for the deployment and coordination of Member
States civil protection assistance in response to major emergencies
inside and outside the EU. The complementary roles of humanitarian
and civil protection are strong in the WASH sector: the growing
urban humanitarian WASH needs often require a technically sophisticated
response beyond the capacity of many humanitarian agencies, which
can be provided through civil protection actors.
"Third, with an extensive network of NGO, UN
and Red Cross partners, together with a network of 140 field experts,
the Commission reviews and promotes quality and best practice
in the face of changing humanitarian WASH demands. Both through
funding, and extensive partnerships, the Commission works to improve
the enabling environment for humanitarian WASH responses. This
includes work with the global WASH Cluster as the focus of the
global humanitarian WASH community to deliver quality aid through
an inclusive and effective preparation and coordination."
4.4 To complement humanitarian responses, the Commission
says that the work of development actors in the area of early
recovery is vital. For the 712 million allocated to date
through its Development "Water Facility" for African,
Caribbean and Pacific countries, project selection is done jointly
with the Commission's humanitarian experts. Last but not least,
based on its expertise, the Commission has a substantial role
to play in terms of advocacy for water issues in general and WASH
in particular.
4.5 The Commission sets out the ways in which it
programmes, implements and co-ordinates its humanitarian WASH
delivery, which it says in particular build upon the Commission's
comparative advantages as a humanitarian actor. At the global
level, the Commission says that it is actively and constructively
engaged with the "Transformative Agenda" to strengthen
the global humanitarian response system, including the functioning
of the Global WASH Cluster.[9]
Within this "global enabling environment", the Commission
says that:
it is ensuring the application of best practice to improve the
quality of humanitarian WASH assistance, and the resilience of
the vulnerable populations assisted;
Commission humanitarian WASH assistance
applies in anticipation of, during, and in the aftermath of humanitarian
crises.
4.6 The Commission says that this is achieved through
the principal objective:
"To save and preserve life and alleviate the
suffering of populations facing severe environmental health risks
and/or water insecurity in the context of anticipated, on-going
and recent humanitarian crises."
and with the following specific objectives (the
Commission's emphasis):
"(1) To ensure timely and dignified access
to sufficient and safe WASH services for populations threatened
by on-going, imminent or future humanitarian crises, and to
increase their resilience to withstand water stress and shocks.
"(2) To implement measures to prevent the
spread of WASH related diseases in populations threatened
by on-going, imminent or future humanitarian crises.
"(3) To enhance the impact, relevance, efficiency
and effectiveness in the delivery of WASH assistance by strengthening
the capacities of the humanitarian aid system, including its coordination
mechanism."
4.7 On 25 September, the EU High Representative (HR;
Baroness Ashton) at the High Level Roundtable Discussion on Water,
Peace and Security, in New York, in thanking the US and UN for
joining the EU in "this important initiative" recalled
that EU has spent about 2 billion in 60 countries since
2008 on issues to do with water and sanitation; has longstanding
cooperation with many of the partners represented there; and is
determined to remain engaged and committed. She noted that when
EU foreign ministers met in Cyprus she was:
"trying to make sure that within the European
Union we seriously thought about how this issue, and every aspect
of it, was covered in the foreign policy work we do, and in my
work as Vice President of the Commission, what we do across the
Union. And I have to say it is very obvious from our discussions
with foreign ministers that this is a real key preoccupation as
we think about the challenges in different regions of the world
and the potential for conflict or for other forms of difficulty
created."[10]
4.8 That meeting took place on 8 September, after
which the HR said that this particular meeting had chosen to focus
discussion on two topics:
"The first was water, where as many of you know,
so many parts of the world face real challenges either because
of climate change which results in flood or drought, or because
of the quality of water available for people which is insufficient
quality for their needs, or because of the challenges of many
countries sharing water resources and the impact of changes that
might take place in how people use water. So we had a broad discussion
on this from which it was very clear that all the Ministers were
united in the view that the EU should do as much as it possibly
can to support the provision of water and to look at these issues
from that broader horizontal perspective. "It's also important
that in the post-Lisbon world we work with our colleagues in the
Commission, in my role as Vice President, across the different
areas in order to ensure that we are responding to these important
challenges which include of course the potential for conflict
because of the lack of water, of the needs of water."[11]
The Government's view
4.9 In her Explanatory Memorandum of 1 November 2012,
the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for
International Development (Ms Lynne Featherstone) that there are
"no policy implications contained in this document as this
paper is a narrative of the Commission's work on humanitarian
WASH."
4.10 She nonetheless welcomes the Commission Staff
Working Paper on this issue, and says that she will "continue
to encourage" the Commission "to ensure that any humanitarian
financed WASH interventions are designed to ensure that the financing
and institutional arrangements for ownership and maintenance are
sufficient for schemes to remain functioning in the long-term."
4.11 She also says that:
"In certain contexts, in-kind contributions
of specialised WASH equipment may be provided through the
EU Civil Protection Mechanism,[12]
while in others 'standby arrangements' between the Commission
implementing partners and private foundations (such as international
water utilities) may be used to mobilize specialised WASH expertise
and equipment to disaster areas. This may be of interest to UK
utilities and WASH product providers."
Conclusion
4.12 At the outset, the Commission notes that
humanitarian aid alone will not be able to continue to address
rapidly growing needs; and that improving resilience and Linking
Relief, Rehabilitation and Development (LRRD) is "vital to
helping meet these needs before they become humanitarian emergencies".
4.13 Elsewhere in this Report we consider a related
document, this time from the Court of Auditors, on "European
Union Development Assistance for Drinking-Water Supply and Basic
Sanitation in Sub-Saharan Countries". That report found
that EU support had increased access to drinking water and basic
sanitation, but that fewer than half the projects delivered results
fully meeting the beneficiaries' needs; and that, whilst Commission
project management procedures and processes do address sustainability,
implementation in Commission funded projects had been highly variable
and in many cases had failed to ensure sustainability of services
provided.
4.14 Nothing can do more to improve resilience
in this (or any other such area) than projects that work over
the medium and long term. However, it is plain from this Court
of Auditors' Report that the Commission still has much to do.
We are thus puzzled by the brevity of the Minister's remarks about
this related Commission Staff Working Document, given that, at
the same time, the Court of Auditors has (as she herself notes)
demonstrated that:
despite
having good processes and procedures in place, the Commission's
proper use and implementation of them is variable;
results show numerous examples where
Commission projects are not sustainable, or where they have failed
to meet beneficiaries' expectations;
the Commission's response is that
they have put in place further processes, rather than outlining
their commitment to use their existing systems more effectively;
the Commission has not focused on
the delivery of results, which represents a lack of accountability
and transparency.
4.15 We have recommended that the Court of Auditors'
report be debated in European Committee B. We also recommend that
this document be debated along with it, so that the Minister can
outline her approach more fully and interested Members can satisfy
themselves that the Government will be able to improve the Commission's
future management of water and sanitation projects.
4.16 We are also drawing this chapter of our Report
to the attention of the International Development Committee.
7 See chapter 3 of this Report. Back
8
For full background on the European Union and Water Security,
see
http://www.eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_12623_en.htm. Back
9
According to its website, "[t]he Global WASH Cluster
provides an open and formal platform for humanitarian WASH actors
to work together to address key weaknesses in the WASH sector
as a whole.
"Based on formal analyses of the
gaps and bottlenecks affecting WASH responses, work-plans and
clear working arrangements amongst GWC partners have been established
to address identified gaps and to ensure that the necessary standards,
systems, and capacities for co-ordinated WASH humanitarian responses
are in place at a global level." For full information, see
http://www.washcluster.info/. Back
10
See http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/132584.pdf
for the full text of the HR's remarks. Back
11
Taken from remarks made by the HR following the 8 September 2012
Informal Meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers (Gymnich) in Nicosia.
The full text is available at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/132289.pdf. Back
12
The European Civil Protection Mechanism was established in 2001
to support the mobilisation of emergency assistance from Participating
States in the event of major emergencies. Primary responsibility
for dealing with the immediate effects of a disaster lies with
the country where it has occurred. Nevertheless, when the scale
of the emergency overwhelms national response capacities, a disaster-stricken
country can benefit from civil protection assets or teams available
in European countries. The 32 Participating States of the Mechanism
are all EU Member States, the European Economic Area countries
(Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland), Croatia and the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia in their capacity as a candidate country.
See http://ec.europa.eu/echo/civil_protection/civil/prote/pdfdocs/Training%20brochure.pdf
for full information on the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. Back
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