Communication: Annual accounts of the European Development Fund 2015

The European Union has cooperative relations with a large number of developing countries. The main objective is to promote economic, social and environmental development, with the primary aim of reducing and eradicating poverty in the long-term, by providing beneficiary countries with development aid and technical assistance. To achieve this, the EU draws up, jointly with the partner countries, cooperation strategies and mobilises the financial resources to implement them.

These EU resources allocated to development cooperation come from three sources:
- The EU budget;
- The European Development Fund;
- The European Investment Bank.

The European Development Fund (EDF) is the main instrument for providing EU aid for development cooperation to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs). The EDF is not funded by the EU budget. It is established by an internal agreement of the Representatives of the Member States, sitting within the Council, and managed by a specific committee. The European Commission is responsible for the financial implementation of the operations carried out with EDF resources. The European Investment Bank (EIB) manages the Investment Facility.

During the period 2014-2020, the geographic aid granted to ACP States and OCTs will continue to be mainly funded by the EDF. Each EDF is usually concluded for a period of around five years and is governed by its own Financial Regulation which requires the preparation of financial statements for each individual EDF. Accordingly, financial statements are prepared separately for each EDF in respect of the part that is managed by the Commission. These financial statements are also presented in an aggregated way so as to provide a global view of the financial situation of the resources for which the Commission is responsible.

The Investment Facility was established within the framework of the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement. The Facility is managed by the EIB and is used to support private sector development in the ACP States by financing essentially – but not exclusively – private investments. It is designed as a renewable fund, so that loan repayments can be reinvested in other operations, thus resulting in a self-renewing and financially independent facility. As the Investment Facility is not managed by the Commission, it is not consolidated in the first part of the annual accounts – the financial statements of the EDF and the related report on financial implementation. The financial statements of the Investment Facility are included as a separate part of the annual accounts to provide a full picture of the development aid of the EDF.