Report calls for scrutiny of aid policy

Date: 29/05/1997

By Mark Turner

EUROPE'S development ministers are expected to call for a close examination of the EU's humanitarian aid programme next week, following a critical report by the Court of Auditors.

While the Court praised the European Commission's ability to deploy large sums of aid despite limited resources, it also criticised a lack of policy transparency and coordination with other donors from 1992 to 1995.

The EU provides around half the world's humanitarian aid (worth over 2 billion ecu from 1992-1995). But the Court says its humanitarian aid policy is “still not sufficiently clear, and the complementarity and coordination of the aid fall far short of the treaty provisions and Council resolutions”.

Its report also criticises Commission staffing policy as “ill-suited to the demands of humanitarian operations”, and points to weaknesses in management procedures, with insufficient on-the-spot monitoring.

Officials in the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) insist that coordination has improved since 1995 and stress that the nature of humanitarian aid (a quick response to an emergency) means that exhaustive coordination is difficult without compromising speed.

At their meeting next Wednesday (5 June), development ministers will call upon evaluators examining ECHO for the first time since it was established to focus upon shortfalls in cohesion, coordination, budgetary procedures, evaluation mechanisms and staffing issues.

Ministers will also consider the Court's recommendation that the Union should draw up a “general policy document, a kind of charter for humanitarian aid” to put its work on to a clearer legislative footing. It also says that “the thinking behind the way in which aid is organised should be reconsidered”.