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"EU aid delivers results" - Commissioners Georgieva and Piebalgs comment on the OECD Peer Review on EU development and humanitarian aid programmes

We welcome the Peer Review report of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of the work of the European Union in development cooperation and humanitarian assistance.
The comprehensive report gives credit to the EU as a major global player in development cooperation and humanitarian assistance, based on the size, geographical reach and partnership dimension of its aid programmes. We are pleased to note that it recognises many of the EU’s strengths as well as its achievements since the last Peer Review of 2007, in its dual role of donor and 'federator' of EU Member States' policies and aid programmes.

The review reflects the substantial efforts we have undertaken to make European aid more effective and bring higher impact. We have done so by improving our organisational set-up, streamlining our financial instruments, by better coordinating our work with the EU Member States and also by aligning our aid with partner countries' needs.

We share the report's view that the EU plays a leading role in calling on donors to live up to their promises of increasing aid and in exploring new ways to mobilise additional resources, such as private funding. The report also refers positively to the EU's efforts to improve aid effectiveness and make sure that other policies also pursue development objectives.

The review recognises the EU as a good humanitarian donor, with a strong field presence and understanding of operational realities; a solid evidence base, strong programming and a learning culture; and the depth of experience of staff.


Our ambition is to provide more and better aid which ensures we make a real difference in helping the victims of disasters and crises, overcoming poverty and achieving sustainable and inclusive growth. We recognise, however, the need to further improve our work. We are pleased to see that new policy directions expressed in the Agenda for Change in EU development policy and our legislative proposals for the next EU budget are seen as the steps in the right direction by the authors of the report. We will focus on fewer sectors and direct more aid to the poorest countries where it can have the biggest impact.

We are already building tenable bridges between our humanitarian and development policies and projects to make sure we address the crisis situations, build resilience and improve support for the transition of fragile environments toward sustainable development. Our joint initiative to address the food crisis in the Horn of Africa (SHARE) is a recent and expressive testimony of the results of our joint work.

The analysis and recommendations of today's review with our partners cover both the EU institutions and our partners in the Member States and we look forward to discussing with them how to take our important work forward.

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