10 The EU approach to resilience
| Committee's assessment
| Politically important |
| Committee's decision | Cleared from scrutiny (decision reported on 9 October 2013); further information requested; drawn to the attention of the International Development Committee
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| Document details | Commission Staff Working Document: Action Plan for Resilience in Crisis Prone Countries 2013-2020
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| Legal base | —
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| Department | International Development
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| Document numbers | (35181), 11554/13, SWD(13) 227
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Summary and Committee's conclusions
10.1 The EU is one of the world's largest donors, providing life-saving
assistance to people affected by various crises. A 2012 Communication
outlined how the Commission proposed to help countries and communities
to be better prepared to cope with and recover from natural disasters.
Resilience would become an integral component of EU humanitarian
and development assistance, addressing a broader set of risks,
such as flooding and cyclones. Future programmes would focus much
more on building people's long-term resilience to predictable
shocks and stresses. The Committee cleared the Commission Communication
in November 2013,[33]
and then engaged in discussion with the then Minister (Lynne Featherstone)
about the Council Conclusions that fed into this subsequent Action
Plan, which was submitted for scrutiny in August 2013.
10.2 The then Minister welcomed the Action Plan,
and endorsed its three priorities:
· EU
support to the development and implementation of national and
regional approaches;
· innovation,
learning and advocacy; and
· methodologies
and tools to support resilience.
10.3 However, how the Action Plan was implemented
is what would matter most — especially the sharing of lessons
and making sure, as the then Minister put it, this became "an
integral way of how it does business" and of how well the
different parts of the EU system worked together — "how
they generate and pool the political engagement and technical
capacity to support delivery, and increase the flexibility of
engagement, including finance, in order to adjust to changing
risks on the ground".
10.4 When we considered her Explanatory Memorandum
and the Action Plan last autumn, we asked the then Minister to
write in a year's time with whatever information was then available
about the reviewing of implementation and an indication of what
the future review timeline was.
10.5 The Minister's letter reveals that, a year
later, this request was perhaps a touch premature. We would therefore
be grateful if she or her successor would provide the Committee
with something similar in two years' time, by when systems that
are "being systematically factored into European Commission
programmes and assistance" (see the Minister's letter at
paragraph 11.16 below for detail) should be up-and-running, and
capable of showing measurable outcomes.
10.6 In the meantime, we are again drawing this
chapter of our Report to the attention of the International Development
Committee.
10.7 Full
details of the document:
(35181), 11554/13, SWD(13) 227: Commission Staff Working Document:
Action Plan for Resilience in Crisis Prone Countries 2013-2020
Background
10.8 The EU is one of the world's largest donors,
providing life-saving assistance to people affected by various
crises. Commission Communication 14616/12, which we cleared in
November 2012, outlined how the Commission proposed to help countries
and communities to be better prepared to cope with and recover
from natural disasters. The focus was on the experience gained
in tackling food security resulting from drought in the Horn of
Africa and the Sahel. The wider aim was to use this and other
experience to make resilience an integral component of EU humanitarian
and development assistance, addressing a broader set of risks,
such as flooding and cyclones. Future programmes would focus much
more on building people's long-term resilience to predictable
shocks and stresses. The Commission set out its "10 Steps
to increase resilience in food insecure and disaster prone countries".
The Commission would generate an Action Plan for implementing
this new approach by the end of March 2013. The Council would
adopt Conclusions sometime during the Irish Presidency.[34]
10.9 Subsequent exchanges with the then Minister
(Lynne Featherstone) are set out in our previous Report. The then
Minister noted that:
— the
UK had a resilience adviser Seconded National Expert working in
DG-ECHO which she said had "greatly assisted our influencing
of the Council conclusions and the Action Plan";
— publication of the Action Plan was moved
to fall after adoption of the Council Conclusions[35]
"in order to allow for it to take on board the messages contained
within them."[36]
Commission Staff Working Document SWD(13) 227:
Action Plan for Resilience in Crisis Prone Countries 2013-2020
10.10 In submitting it for scrutiny on 27 August
2013, the then Minister welcomed the Action Plan. She noted that,
since 2000, disasters had killed 1.1 million people, affected
2.7 billion, caused economic loss of over US$1.3 trillion, increased
poverty, slowed the achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals and inflamed instability. With disasters expected to become
more frequent and severe, the then Minister said that helping
countries manage risks should no longer be seen as a humanitarian
endeavour, but first and foremost a development one. She went
on to note that the cornerstone of the Action Plan was accordingly
much better integration between the EU's humanitarian, development
and political engagement, to help countries tackle more comprehensively
those factors that lead to repeated crises. Against this background,
the Action Plan had three priorities, which the Minister endorsed:
— EU
support to the development and implementation of national and
regional approaches;
— innovation, learning and advocacy; and
— methodologies and tools to support resilience.
10.11 The then Minister also noted other parallel
commitments to integrate disaster resilience in humanitarian assistance
and development investments: the US Resilience Strategy launched
in November 2012, the World Bank report Managing Disaster Risk
for a Resilient Future (ditto) and DFID's own commitment to
embed disaster resilience in all its country programmes by 2015
(see our previous Report for full details).
10.12 In its Conclusion, the Committee noted that
the need for this sort of approach was evident, and the way in
which the process had been taken forward was exemplary —
notably the involvement of DFID. However, how the Action Plan
was implemented would be what mattered most — especially
the sharing of lessons and making sure, as the then Minister put
it:
"this becomes an integral way of how it
does business.... how well the different parts of the EU system
work together, how they generate and pool the political engagement
and technical capacity to support delivery, and increase the flexibility
of engagement, including finance, in order to adjust to changing
risks on the ground."
10.13 The Committee accordingly found it curious
that then Minister made no mention of Monitoring and Evaluation;
whereas the Commission Staff Working Document said that:
· each
priority action included in the Action Plan was linked to an overall
objective and a specific output, so as regularly to monitor effective
implementation of the Action Plan;
· a performance
management framework, as well as related monitoring and evaluation
frameworks would be developed, allowing to track progress on the
implementation of the Plan;
· the
Commission and the EEAS would engage with the Member States to
review progress made on the resilience agenda at regular intervals,
looking in particular at the policy, programming, mobilisation
and use of funding, implementation modalities and results; and
· regular
reviews of the Action Plan would be organised to assess progress
and adapt the Action Plan where necessary, building on the lessons
learnt throughout the implementation of the Action Plan, thus
allowing for further elaboration of resilience building actions
in the years to come.
10.14 This was, we observed, as it should be. Though
no specific timeline was given, we therefore asked the then Minister
to write in a year's time with whatever information was then available
about the reviewing of implementation and an indication of what
the future review timeline was (an annual report, for example;
or a review by the European Court of Auditors).
10.15 We also draw these developments to the attention
of the International Development Committee.[37]
The Minister's letter of 11 December 2014
10.16 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
at the Department for International Development (Baroness Northover),
noting that the Committee felt that it was how the Action Plan
would be implemented that would matter most, writes as follows:
"Progress has been good and in many cases
has exceeded the targets. In the Sahel region, the Global Alliance
for Resilience Initiative (AGIR) initiative is firmly established
and the framework is in place to coordinate government and donor
support to improve food and nutrition security over the long term.
Eight countries have finalised national dialogues leading to the
identification of Country Resilience Priorities. These identify
plans and concrete actions to build resilience in the agriculture,
food and nutrition sectors in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger,
Senegal, Cote D'Ivoire, Guinea (on hold due to the Ebola crisis)
and Togo. AGIR principles have been included in the objectives
of the 11th European Development Funds in the Regional and National
Implementation Plans in all relevant Sahel countries.
"The Supporting the Horn of Africa's Resilience
(SHARE) initiative has translated the political commitments outlined
in the Action Plan into a process for country resilience-building
interventions. Early projects have been implemented in Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. In Ethiopia and Kenya SHARE Country
Programming Papers, setting out resilience building programmes,
have been integrated into national frameworks and are under implementation.
"Resilience approaches are being systematically
factored into European Commission programmes and assistance in
fragile and vulnerable countries and into the Commission's Humanitarian
Aid and Civil Protection Department's (ECHO) humanitarian responses.
Strategic assessments, to determine resilience objectives, are
underway in Nepal, Bangladesh, Haiti, Yemen, South Sudan, Mali
and Central Africa Republic. In these countries ECHO, Development
and Cooperation (DEVCO), Member States and other donors are joining
efforts.
"There is now evidence that resilience is
being systematically integrated into European Development Fund
and Development Cooperative Instrument programming as well as
Humanitarian Implementation Plans. For instance, DFID's humanitarian
team was extensively consulted on the EU's resilience programme
to Somalia over a six-month period; and in Ethiopia the EDF strategy
includes building up the coping capacities of the population over
the coming 3 to 5 years. To support these initiatives, the EU
is developing guidelines and monitoring tools; as well as running
training courses in Brussels and with country delegations.
"Resilience is a DFID priority and we are
funding a seconded national expert within ECHO working on these
issues".
Previous
Committee Reports:
Seventeenth Report HC 83-xvi (2013-14), chapter 17
(9 October 2013); also see (34303), 14616/12: Twentieth Report
HC 86-xx (2012-13), chapter 30 (21 November 2012).
33 See (34303), 14616/12: Twentieth Report HC 86-xx
(2012-13), chapter 30 (21 November 2012). Back
34
See (34303), 14616/12: Twentieth Report HC 86-xx (2012-13), chapter 30
(21 November 2012). Back
35
See the Council Conclusions. Back
36
See Seventeenth Report HC 83-xvi (2013-14), chapter 17 (9 October
2013). Back
37
Seventeenth Report HC 83-xvi (2013-14), chapter 17 (9 October
2013). Back
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