Following the debate which took place during the sitting of 11 July 2007, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the democratic scrutiny of the implementation of the financing instrument for development cooperation (DCI).
Parliament regrets that the country strategy papers do not allocate a sufficient part of the resources to the DCI's overarching goal of poverty eradication and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It also regrets in particular that it is totally unclear how the EU will reach the "benchmark of 20% of its allocated assistance under country programmes covered by the DCI [to] be dedicated to basic and secondary education and basic health" by 2009. The Commission is urged to indicate in detail how it is honouring this commitment and whether in this respect instructions have been issued to desk officers and delegations and a specific statistical basis established.
The Commission is invited to:
- pursue poverty eradication and the achievement of the MDGs, in particular by a strong focus on basic health and basic education; stresses that, for countries where these are not included as focal sectors, the Commission must provide detailed information on other donors" activities, showing how the partner country is on its way to achieving the MDGs by 2015;
- provide detailed information on the MDG impact of all activities planned under the DCI; requests the Commission to indicate, in order of priority, which criteria it used for the allocation of funds between the DCI geographical programmes, as well as the criteria for establishing strategy papers for some countries and regions and not for others;
- provide Parliament with a detailed and up-to-date "donor matrix" for each country and region;
- inform Parliament of how it is planning to ensure proper and effective consultation with all stakeholders at all stages of the programming process, in particular when it intends to introduce new activities;
- apply the eligibility criteria for budget support, particularly refraining from such actions in countries where transparency in public spending cannot be assured;
- provide supplementary information to Parliament, particularly on how, in all countries benefiting from budget support;
- send Parliament all information on the geographic and thematic programmes, along with the full list of the members of the DCI committee;
- forward systematically and immediately to the members of the DCI committee all the conclusions of Parliament's scrutiny in their full versions;
- address Parliament's concerns, expressed in the conclusions of its scrutiny of the Strategy Papers, and to fully implement Parliament's recommendations and requests in the annual action plans.