The Committee on Development
unanimously adopted the own-initiative report by Johan VAN HECKE
(ALDE, BE) on the follow-up to the Paris Declaration of 2005 on Aid
Effectiveness, calling on Member States and the Commission to ensure that the
EU speaks with one voice in terms of development, in order to make their actions
more harmonised, transparent, predictable and collectively effective. In
particular, MEPs consider that the Commission should focus its development
policy on poverty eradication and results.
Concerned about the rise in the
prices of raw materials and the current global food crisis, MEPs call on the
Commission and each Member State to support any measure which can help to stabilise
raw material prices for developing countries. They also call for better
integration of new Member States into the EU development policy, recalling
that these Member States have committed themselves to Official Development
Assistance (ODA) targets of 0.17% of GNI by 2010 and 0.33% by 2015. At the
same time, MEPs examine the development policy as a whole and make a series
of comments on the following points:
- MDGs (Millennium
Development Goals): MEPs call on the Commission and the Member States to
ensure that EU policies as well as the aid architecture support the
Paris Declaration principle of managing for results. In particular, they
call for the creation and implementation of innovative financing
mechanisms to contribute to attaining the MDGs, while ensuring that
these additional resources do not replace the commitments already given
in terms of public development aid. MEPs stress the particular need for
improvement of the health MDGs, while recognising that most of the MDG
targets will not be met by 2015;
- Rationalise aid and
improve effectiveness: MEPs call on the Commission to devise a matrix
of all the financial instruments from which it has awarded funds for
good governance, whether from the European Development Fund (EDF), the
DCI, the EU-Africa Strategy or the funding allocated to African
governments for good governance, in order to check the consistency of
policies and the sound management of these funds;
- Division of labour: in
order to further improve the effectiveness of aid granted, MEPs call on
the Member States to promote the division of labour agenda, as set out
in the Code of Conduct on Division of Labour (Commission Communication
entitled “EU Code of Conduct on Division of Labour in Development
Policy” - see COM(2007)0072).
They stress that the division of labour should be country-led, based on
the Paris Declaration principles and results-focused and lead to
sufficient financing of all sectors in each partner country;
- Improve democratic control
of aid: MEPs believe that it is necessary to improve the control
measures for aid granted, particularly by giving all partner countries
the opportunity to better manage parliamentary control over the
effectiveness of aid. It is also necessary that the EU provide resources
and capacity development support to developing country parliaments to
ensure that they have sufficient capacity to engage in scrutiny and
oversight of their governments' budgets. They also stress the need for
the international financial institutions and donor countries to publish
the conditions for granting development aid, so that genuine democratic
control can be exercised by parliaments, local authorities and civil
society.
- Budget support: MEPs
support the choice of the Commission to increasingly use budget support.
At the same time, MEPs call on the Commission to improve the clarity of
the definitions relating to the ODA sectoral allocations so as to
improve consistency of the results, by ensuring that there is no
widening of ODA definitions to include items such as military spending.
- Fighting corruption:
MEPs recall that corruption is a major obstacle to greater aid
effectiveness. Therefore, greater transparency of countries' public
financial management systems is necessary, as well as practical measures
by civil society, to ensure that aid provided by the EU reaches the
rightful aid recipients.
- Simplification of
procedures: MEPs call on the Commission to continue to simplify
procedures, including aid delivery processes and to further decentralise
responsibility by providing the delegations with sufficient capacity to
monitor the granting of aid on the ground. They support the role played
by the Commission in terms of coordinating development aid among Member
States and they emphasise the added value provided by the Commission in
taking a leading role in the political dialogue between the EU and the
partner countries.
- Basic public services:
once again, MEPs call for at least 20% of development aid to be devoted
to improving basic public services such as education, health, access to
water and sanitation.
- Untying and conditionality
of development aid: once again, MEPs call for the complete untying
of aid, as they have done for years (particularly technical assistance,
food aid and food transport aid) and insist on the gradual phasing out
of policy-oriented conditionality of aid, especially economic policy
conditionality, to support a common understanding on key priorities. In
particular, they emphasise the need to disburse aid according to
partners’ own priorities and timetables.
- Funding of aid: MEPs
call for incremental and predictable funding, in the form of multi-year
(3 years or more) aid commitments, which are based on clear and
transparent criteria and poverty eradication outcomes.
- Aid for trade: MEPs
ask particularly that the aid for trade strategy benefit all developing
countries, and not only those agreeing to a greater liberalisation of
their markets, notably in the context of Economic Partnership
Agreements.
- Aid and the environment:
MEPs also call upon the Commission to assess the impact of development
policies on climate change, desertification and biodiversity in the
countries concerned.
- Gender equality: MEPs
recall that the European Consensus for Development recognises gender
equality as a goal in its own right, and as a key area for discussion on
aid effectiveness. Therefore, a strong gender perspective must be
included at every stage of the programming, implementation, monitoring
and evaluation levels of aid programmes.
- Improving transparency:
MEPs insist on the transparency of information on aid flows and call for
the timely public dissemination of complete information on all aid
committed, allocated and disbursed to be ensured.
More generally, MEPs emphasise
that aid reform is only one of the steps that the EU must take along with
making its trade, security, migration, agriculture, fisheries, energy,
environment, climate change and other policies coherent with development
objectives in orderto benefit developing countries and to
promote a fair international financial and trade system in favour of
development. Lastly, they recall that the agendas of aid quantity and aid
quality are inextricably linked, and that aid effectiveness targets can only
be met if the Commission and the Member States reconfirm their commitment to
achieving their collective target for ODA of 0.56% of GNI in 2010 and 0.7% of
GNI in 2015.