ECHO (European Commission) - European Parliament Report

European Parliament Report

The Committee on Development (CD) of the European Parliament (EP) commissioned the Overseas Development Institute to undertake a project on the effectiveness of international development assistance from the European Commission. The project focused on the cases of Cambodia, Mozambique and Peru. The findings and policy suggested can be summarized as follows:

  1. Harmonisation and alignment (H&A) is crucial for state capacity and should be expanded from sharing and spreading information to increasing joint activities in the short-term.
  2. Donor harmonisation efforts need to be scaled up to include agreements on joint technical assistance and the streamlining of systems and procedures
  3. Extremely fragmented aid systems impose unreasonably high transaction costs on the government, drains valuable resources, and fundamentally weakens state capacity.
  4. EC procedures and structures remain highly complicated and bureaucratic.
  5. Much of the success or failure of cooperation depends on individual interactions, specific innovators and appropriate staffing levels to carry out the tasks at hand, but the costs are also quite high.
  6. Country Strategy Papers could improve aid effectiveness — but their quality is uneven.
  7. Relations between HQ and delegations needs to be improved.

Read more about this topic:  ECHO (European Commission)

Famous quotes containing the words european, parliament and/or report:

    “What is the first thing that savage tribes accept from Europeans nowadays? Brandy and Christianity, the European narcotics.—And what is it that most rapidly leads to their destruction?—The European narcotics.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “How easily some light report is set about, but how difficult to bear.”
    —Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)