External co-operation programmes – European Commission

Key documents

• European Consensus
• Donor Atlas
• Communication on complementarity and division of labour
• Report of the Ad-Hoc Working Party of the Council on Harmonisation (Aid effectiveness)

Related links

• The Paris Declaration
• Budget support
• 2006 EU aid effectiveness package
• New Financial Regulations
• Sector support
• Train4Dev
• The Monterrey agreement
• General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC)
• OECD
• DAC

Fostering aid effectiveness

WHAT'S NEW: Reforming Technical Cooperation and Project Implementation Units

Following EuropeAid Aid Effectiveness commitments and answering to the European Court of Auditors Special Report on the effectiveness of Technical Assistance in the context of capacity development (n. 6/2007), Europe Aid has developed a Backbone Strategy on "Reforming Technical Cooperation and Project Implementation Units for External Aid provided by the European Commission followed by a Workplan

• The Backbone Strategy on TC and PIUs [261 KB]
• The Workplan [135 KB]
• Presentation of the Backbone Strategy on TC and PIUs [2 MB]
•  Guidelines [14 MB] on "Making Technical Cooperation more effective" and Annexes [6 MB] to the Guidelines including:
  • Annex 1: Aid effectiveness commitments in the area of TC
  • Annex 2: Court of Auditors’ recommendations
  • Annex 3: The Cycle of operations for "TC support”
  • Annex 4: Quality Assessment Grid
  • Annex 5: Format for Mutual Performance Dialogue
  • Annex 6: Short Guide to EC rules and procedures – How to apply EC procedures to TC.

• Presentation of the Guidelines on "Making Technical Cooperation more effective" [2 MB]
• Toolkit on Capacity Development [2 MB] (March 2009)

 

For further questions or remarks please contact us.

The European Union's Aid Effectiveness Package 2006

In 2006, the European Union (EU, including the 27 Member States) approved the European Consensus , which outlines a common Union policy on development, and a set of Communications on aid effectiveness or implementation by Member States. Besides being committed to the Paris Indicators, the EU has set even more ambitious targets on four of these indicators:

• To provide all capacity-building assistance through coordinated programmes with an increasing use of multi-donor arrangements;
• To channel 50% of government-to-government assistance through country systems, to include increasing the percentage of EU assistance provided through budget support or SWAP arrangements;
• To avoid setting up any new project implementation units (PIUs);
• To reduce the number of uncoordinated missions by 50%

The  report of the Ad-Hoc Working Party of the Council on Harmonisation (AHWPH – April 2005) made a number of recommendations to advance the process of EU aid effectiveness, including: establishing EU roadmaps in pilot countries; decentralisation of competences, responsibilities and decision-making to country level; and developing strategies for multi-annual programming, for complementarity and a common framework for aid-implementation procedures.

What the Commission is doing to make aid more effective

The European Commission is committed to the Paris Declaration and is working at policy, strategy and implementation levels to accelerate progress on the Paris and EU actions and indicators mentioned above.

To facilitate implementation by the Commission, devolution of responsibilities to Delegations was completed in 2006.

New financial Regulations will allow for – from 2007 for the budget and 2008 for the European Development Fund (EDF) – Community funds to be given to other donors to manage and the Commission to manage funds from others, including mixing grants with loans and supporting public-private partnerships. The Commission is pushing ahead to meet the target of 50% of the 10^th EDF to be provided as sector/budget support, and, jointly with other donors, is actively promoting staff capacity development on public finance management (for more information see Train4Dev).

The Commission a producing a series of donor atlas mapping aid disbursements that are currently under way. Delegations continue to produce Blue Books showing how aid is fragmented, with Mozambique refining this process further (for more information see Mozambique). The Commission has adopted a Communication on complementarity and division of labour . The Monterrey agreement is being monitored and an annual report is given to the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC). A work programme on accelerating aid effectiveness is being implemented systematically by EuropeAid in coordination with DGs Development and External Relations.

How EuropeAid is accelerating aid effectiveness

EuropeAid is accelerating aid effectiveness by:

• Selecting 46 priority countries, based on where 80% of the aid is disbursed, for accelerated action on aid effectiveness;
• Activating two staff networks, one at Head Quarter level and one in the 46 priority countries (Delegation network TORs and members), to implement the work programme (for more information see HQ network TORs and members). For example, the HQ network is coordinating working groups that are preparing strategies for implementing the four EU targets on aid effectiveness;
• Increasing awareness and capacity development among staff through training and via an internal website on aid effectiveness;
• Revising project and programme identification and implementation fact sheets in line with aid effectiveness requirements;
• Developing diagnostic tools to help identify and resolve specific constraints to aid effectiveness, and coordinating problem-solving workshops in priority countries to pilot tools;
• Monitoring the EC's performance on the Paris and EU indicators, through the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) process as well as through the six-monthly reports by Delegations (for more information see indicators).