34 Development Education and Awareness
Raising (DEAR) in Europe
| Committee's assessment
| Politically important |
| Committee's decision | Cleared from scrutiny; further information requested
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| Document details | Commission Staff Working Document on encouraging "Non-state actors and local authorities in development", both from the EU and in developing countries, to get more involved in development issues (34636), 5026/13, SWD(12) 457
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| Legal base | —
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| Department | International Development
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Summary and Committee's conclusions
34.1 The 2007-2013 Development Co-operation Instrument
(DCI) budget was €16.9 billion. €5.6 billion was for
thematic programmes benefiting all developing countries. One aimed
at encouraging "Non-state actors and local authorities in
development", both from the EU and in developing countries,
to get more involved in development issues. The DEAR programme
— €250 million — was funded under this heading.
34.2 DEAR complements bilateral spending of some
€220 million per year from within Member States, many of
whom have their own DEAR strategies. Programmes target groups
such as schools, journalists, youth, decision makers and the private
sector, and can cover global learning or campaigning/advocacy.
34.3 Notwithstanding the acknowledged difficulty
of demonstrating the impact of DEAR programmes and the failure
to capitalise on the results thus far, the default was not to
instigate a serious re-examination of DEAR activity — such
as that carried out by DFID — but to presume that it must
continue in its present form, and with no more than a vague commitment
by the Commission to it being less demand driven and activity
focussed, and to being "more strategic", and that the
Commission would try to get better at monitoring and measuring
actual impact.
34.4 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at
the Department for International Development (Lynne Featherstone)
wanted (rightly) to see continued DEAR funding to be subject to
the same stringent VFM criteria and evidence of results as are
other programmes, and in particular evidence of a direct link
to poverty reduction. She also (rightly) questioned the appropriateness
of providing government funding to organisations that would often
subsequently lobby governments and others for more money. She
noted very little evidence regarding the impact of the work to
coordinate DEAR work across the EU and said she would want to
ensure that any such work did add value. Her officials had made
these points to the Commission, but the impression she gave was
that they had made little impact. Though improving impact measurement
was said to be a key priority, there was no suggestion in either
its paper or from the Minister that the Commission was any closer
to cracking this nut. Nonetheless, it was being taken for granted
that the next financial perspective would include significant
EU DEAR expenditure.
34.5 At its 27 February 2013 meeting, the Committee
retained the Commission Staff Working Document under scrutiny.
The next step would be the presentation of the Commission's DEAR
Strategy for 2014-20. The Committee therefore asked the Minister
to let it know when the Committee would be given the opportunity
to scrutinise it prior to any agreement to it by the Government,
and to discuss any questions that might arise, including via a
European Committee debate if appropriate.[140]
34.6 The Minister next wrote to the Committee on
14 May 2014: the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)
having been agreed, the new DEAR programme would incorporate three
headings: Raising Public Awareness; Policy Coherence for Development
and Promoting Development Education, which she "broadly"
supported, noting that DFID's own review found that funding through
formal development education programmes was the most effective
use; she "would therefore be most supportive of work in this
area", but also believed that work on policy coherence was
"important and of value". The Minister remained concerned,
however, "that the shortfalls identified in my original Explanatory
Memorandum of 7 February 2013 have not yet been addressed, particularly
with respect to measuring the benefits of DEAR and the lack of
results monitoring", and had "flagged our concerns to
the Commission making clear that these areas will need to be addressed
before the programme is finalised".
34.7 The Minister now says that €49 million
a year will be allocated to the DEAR programme in each of the
next three years, as part of the €970 million Civil Society
Organisations and Local Authorities (CSO-LA) Multi-Annual Indicative
Programme (MIP) 2014-2017. But she has made it clear that, when
this is presented for approval at the DCI Management Committee
on 14 October, UK support will be forthcoming only if Parliamentary
scrutiny clearance has been given.
34.8 The Minister also underlines that her officials
have been in close touch with the Commission to ensure that UK
concerns on the DEAR proposal are being addressed, particularly
with regard to measuring the benefits of assistance and results
monitoring, and have made clear that UK support for the programme
will not be forthcoming if these elements are not included, or
are insufficiently covered, in the Annual Action Programme, expected
in September. The Commission is, she says, "investing considerable
effort in making DEAR a smarter and more results focused instrument",
and "the improvements are expected to be evident at all levels".
She lists a number of specific examples that the Commission has
provided DFID of how this will be achieved. If the Annual Action
Programme is "of good quality and UK agrees to support the
DEAR programme", she and her officials "will work with
the European Commission to ensure the measurement programme is
put into practice and that the results produced are available
for inspection".[141]
34.9 We thank the Minister for this informative
update. Although there remains a degree of uncertainty over the
details, we are content to leave it to the Minister to judge if
her conditions have been met when the Annual Action Programme
is presented for approval. At €49 million per annum, the
DEAR programme remains significant: what we expect to see in three
years' time is evidence that will demonstrate to the Commission
and Member States, one way or the other, that this expenditure
has produced measurable outcomes, so that any further such expenditure
would be based on something more solid than subjective, broad-based
assessment.
34.10 In the meantime, we now clear the Commission
Staff Working Document.
Full
details of the documents:
Commission Staff Working Paper: Development Education and
Awareness Raising (DEAR) in Europe: (34636), 5026/13, SWD(12)
457.
Background
34.11 The Development Co-operation Instrument (DCI)
replaced a wide range of geographic and thematic instruments with
three components. The 2007-2013 DCI budget is €16.9 billion.
€5.6 billion is for thematic programmes benefiting all developing
countries. One of these is aimed at encouraging "Non-state
actors and local authorities in development", both from the
EU and in developing countries, to get more involved in development
issues. The DEAR programme — €250 million — is
funded under this heading.
34.12 DEAR work supported by the EU complements bilateral
spending of some €220 million per year from within Member
States, many of whom have their own DEAR strategies. Since 2007,
the majority of EU DEAR funding has been channelled through Civil
Society Organisations (CSOs) and local authorities. Programmes
can target a range of groups including schools, journalists, youth,
decision makers and the private sector and can cover global learning
or campaigning/advocacy.
34.13 The Commission Staff Working Document that
the Committee considered in February 2013 said that the EU's support
of DEAR is an expression of the EU's political, social and economic
values through the promotion of sustainable development as a shared
human responsibility; and that DEAR's overall objective is:
"To develop citizens' awareness and critical
understanding of the interdependent world, of their role and responsibility
in relation to a globalised society; and to support their active
engagement with global attempts to eradicate poverty and promote
justice, human rights and a sustainable social-economic development
in partner countries."
34.14 Notwithstanding the acknowledged difficulty
of demonstrating the impact of DEAR programmes and the failure
to capitalise on the results thus far, the Commission maintained
that analyses had highlighted the added value of active Commission
participation in various ways, and said that, once decisions had
been taken on the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF),
DEAR work should continue, during which consideration might be
given to possible alternative implementation methods in order
to increase consistency, targeting and impact.
34.15 The Minister (Lynne Featherstone) noted that,
following its own independent review in 2011, DFID had stopped
funding a broad range of development awareness work, and was now
focussing on two development education projects in schools —
one that helped UK schools to form long-term and sustainable links
with schools in the developing world and one that would facilitate
and support the teaching of development education and global citizenship
in UK primary and secondary schools.
34.16 Her position on the continued funding of DEAR
through the EU was that:
"it ought to be subject to the same stringent
criteria regarding value for money and evidence of results as
for our other programmes, in particular, there needs to be evidence
of a direct link to poverty reduction."
34.17 With regard to the difficulties in measuring
the benefits of DEAR work, the Minister said that the Commission
had committed to the monitoring and evaluation of every EU-supported
project, and noted that the tools and methodologies for measuring
impact needed to be improved; this would be:
"a key priority for the UK and we will be
pressing for an improved methodology in evaluating results to
be an integral part of the forthcoming renewed DEAR strategy."
34.18 The Minister then noted that in the previous
funding round nearly 60% of all projects focussed on (her emphasis)
campaigning and advocacy, not global learning, and said:
"While some advocacy and campaigning has
merit we would question the appropriateness of providing government
funding to organisations that will often subsequently lobby governments
and other actors for more money. We would want to have more detail
regarding the nature of the campaigning and advocacy work and
the expected results before committing to this as part of the
renewed DEAR strategy."
34.19 She also said:
"There is also very little evidence regarding
the impact of the work to coordinate DEAR work across the EU and
we would want to ensure that any such work did add value."
34.20 What emerged from the Commission Staff Working
Paper was an all-too-familiar degree of complacency. In this instance,
the Commission acknowledged that it had no real idea of the impact
of a €250 million programme beyond the activity itself, and
that the current economic crisis underlined the need for a sound
justification of DEAR programmes. It noted that Member States
could not find proper measures that demonstrated the impact of
DEAR programmes and that — given that the long-term objectives
of most DEAR activities was a change in behaviour and attitudes
— such qualitative results could be difficult to quantify
and assess objectively, and were often not possible at all within
the scope of a project. Yet the default was not to instigate a
serious re-examination of DEAR activity — such as that carried
out by DFID — but to presume that it must continue in its
present form, and with no more than a vague commitment to it being
less demand driven and activity focussed, and "more strategic",
and that the Commission will to try get better at monitoring and
measuring actual impact.
34.21 The Minister's concerns about DEAR were clearly
expressed. Although her officials had, she said, raised these
concerns and made these points to the Commission, the impression
was that they had made little impact. Though improving the tools
and methodologies for measuring impact was to be a key priority,
there was no suggestion in either the Commission Staff Working
Paper or from the Minister that this was a nut that the Commission
was any closer to cracking. Nonetheless, it appeared to be taken
for granted that the next financial perspective would include
significant DEAR expenditure at European level.
34.22 The next step would be the presentation of
the Commission's DEAR Strategy for 2014-20. The Minister does
not make it clear when this would be presented, or how much it
was tied into negotiations for the 2014-20 Multiannual Financial
Framework. We therefore asked her to clarify this, and to let
us know when the Committee would be given the opportunity to scrutinise
it prior to any agreement to it by the Government, and to discuss
any questions that might arise, including via a European Committee
debate if appropriate.
34.23 In the meantime, we retained the Commission
Staff Working Document under scrutiny.[142]
34.24 The Minister next wrote to the Committee on
14 May: the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) having
been agreed, the new DEAR programme would be allocated €190-€286
million and incorporate three headings:
— Raising Public Awareness;
— Policy Coherence for Development; and
— Promoting Development Education.
34.25 She "broadly" supported these three
headings, noting that DFID's own review found that funding through
formal development education programmes was the most effective
use; she "would therefore be most supportive of work in this
area", but also believed that work on policy coherence was
"important and of value". The Minister, however, said
that she remained concerned "that the shortfalls identified
in my original Explanatory Memorandum of 7 February 2013 have
not yet been addressed, particularly with respect to measuring
the benefits of DEAR and the lack of results monitoring",
and had "flagged our concerns to the Commission making clear
that these areas will need to be addressed before the programme
is finalised".
34.26 The next step, the Minister said, would be
publication of the Multi-Indicative Programme document, which
would set out the case for DEAR in much greater detail. She undertook
to write again following discussion of the document at the DCI
management committee on 11 June.
34.27 In its response of 4 June, the Committee recalled
all the points the Minister had made about the failings of the
previous programme and of the Commission to respond to her representations;
pointed out the last programme cost €250 million, with no
real impact assessment; and that expenditure on the proposed new
one seemed at present to embrace a wide range of uncertainty.
The Committee looked forward hearing how all these issues had
been addressed in the DCI management committee discussions.
34.28 The Committee also reminded the Minister that
it continued to expect that no decision would be taken to adopt
any new DEAR programme until the Committee had had an opportunity
to consider whether a prior debate would be appropriate.
The Minister's letter of 23 July 2014
34.29 The Minister now reports that EU DEAR programme
is one of three programme areas to be funded through the Civil
Society Organisations and Local Authorities (CSA-LA) Multi-Annual
Indicative Programme (MIP) 2014-2017; that 10-15% of the MIP's
€970m budget will be allocated to the DEAR programme over
the next three years; and this equates to €49m a year.
34.30 The Minister says that support for the overall
MIP was agreed at the 11 June DCI Management Committee meeting,
but formal adoption of DEAR will be not be considered until when
the CSO-LA Annual Action Programme document is presented to Member
States at the DCI Management Committee on 14 October:
"the UK has made clear that our support
to DEAR will only be forthcoming if Parliamentary scrutiny clearance
has been given."
34.31 The Minister then continues as follows:
"We have been in close touch with the European
Commission to ensure that UK concerns on the DEAR proposal are
being addressed, particularly in regard to measuring the benefits
of assistance and results monitoring. We have made clear that
UK support for the programme will not be forthcoming if these
elements are not included, or insufficiently covered in the Annual
Action Programme, expected in September. The Commission is investing
considerable effort in making DEAR a smarter and more results
focused instrument. The improvements are expected to be evident
at all levels. The attached MIP Document describes (page 28) the
development of tools and indicators to measure the impact of development
education and awareness-raising. The Commission has provided DFID
with specific examples of how this will be achieved:
· "Greater emphasis will be put in
future Calls for Proposals for applications to incorporate SMART
targets (Specific, Measurable and Achievable). If the indicators
of a given application are deficient, then it is unlikely to be
shortlisted for support.
· "A DEAR Support Team is being established
to prepare procedures by which the impact of DEAR funding can
be measured consistently both individually and across a number
of similar themes.
· "The Global Education Network Europe
project (GENE) will be used to help measure policy impact by the
amount of information exchanged between Member States and how
that information is being used to further improve the impact of
assistance.
· "A focus on fewer but higher value
projects will naturally lead to better quality applications being
submitted from organisations that previously had no incentive
to contribute to the DEAR objectives.
· "Euro Barometer, the European Commission's
public opinion monitor, will be to incorporate a dedicated indicator
specific to measuring the impact of DEAR on a consistent baseline
year on year.
"If the Annual Action Programme is of good quality
and UK agrees to support the DEAR programme, we will work with
the European Commission to ensure the measurement programme is
put into practice and that the results produced are available
for inspection."
Previous Committee Reports
Thirty-third Report HC 86-xxxiii (2012-13), chapter
10 (27 February 2013).
140 Thirty-third Report HC 86-xxxiii (2012-13), chapter 10
(27 February 2013). Back
141
See the "Background" section of this chapter of our
Report for details. Back
142
Thirty-third Report HC 86-xxxiii
(2012-13), chapter 10 (27 February 2013). Back
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