By David CroninBRUSSELS, Jul 16 (IPS) - An excessive number of aid donors is hampering efforts to make development assistance more effective, a new study has found.
After examining European Union aid to Cambodia, Mozambique and Peru, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London calculated that these countries have to deal with 15-17 bilateral donors from the EU, as well as the European Commission. The figure is even higher if bodies representing regions like Catalonia in Spain or Flanders in Belgium -- both of which have offices in Mozambique -- are included.
Andrew Lawson, head of the ODI centre for aid and public expenditure, said that while some progress has been made, progress to improve the effectiveness of EU aid "has been slow" over the past two years.
He argued that a specific body may need to be established to address how there can be a better division of labour between aid activities undertaken by the EU's executive, the European Commission, and the Union's individual governments.
Although a code of conduct on reducing duplication of aid work has been drafted in the past year, there has historically been a profound resistance on the part of many EU governments to give the Commission greater powers in development aid.
"This is a conundrum and there are no straightforward answers," Lawson told IPS. "One of the difficulties for harmonisation is that the Commission does not feel empowered. It cannot say: 'Ireland, you stop working on health' or 'Holland, you stop working on education'.
"With division of labour, nobody wants to be the one to take the first step. But somebody needs to take it."
The ODI's report was commissioned by the European Parliament's development committee. The institute examined the performance of EU development assistance since the 2005 Paris declaration on aid effectiveness. That international accord committed donors to ensure that aid activities are better coordinated and that they are aligned with the national priorities set by recipients.
The report notes that the EU accounts for more than half of all development aid given by rich countries to poorer ones, "yet there is a widespread perception that this position has not translated into effective leadership."
Some of the most serious problems were found in Peru.
Despite the country's rapid economic growth over the past decade, poverty rates have changed very little there, with half the population deemed poor and one-fifth living in extreme poverty (on less than one dollar a day).
The report cites an unnamed source in the European Commission's delegation to Peru who argued that the momentum to align aid with national policies had been lost in areas such as alleviating poverty.
Although the report says that the Peruvian Agency for International Cooperation (APCI) has "done a remarkable job" since it was founded to coordinate donors in 2002, it still has to deal with 900 implementing bodies -- both private and public -- and some 2,500 projects per year.
"It is also not helpful that APCI is regarded by many public and private agencies as a nuisance and at best a front desk, and that it lacks political support and weight in the higher levels of government," the report says.
The Commission's staff in Peru "feel swamped by administrative tasks and project demands," the paper adds.
Lawson said that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of 30 rich nations, which oversees the activities of aid donors, was "disconcerted" about statements made by the Commission about how it is seeking to give more power to its staff in recipient countries. This process of "deconcentration" has been presented as "something of a fait accompli", he said, whereas in reality "authority remains unnecessarily centralised" in Brussels.
Lawson urged the Commission to assess if its staff constraints make it wise to continue having delegations in countries such as Peru, which are classified as "lower middle-income" by international bodies.
"It is not our mandate to suggest that delegations should be closed," he said. "But maybe some of them should."
Anders Wijkman, a Swedish conservative member of the European Parliament (MEP), said that the "transaction costs of having too many donors and too many reporting requirements are colossal."
"There is still too little flexibility at country level for a Commission representative to take a decision," he said. "There is too much authority still in Brussels."
Welsh Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock said that it would be prudent to have greater cooperation between EU member states and the Commission in order to reduce the costs of having a plethora of competing agencies.
"Member states still don't want to cede any sovereignty to Brussels," she said. "There is an enormous propensity of wanting to put their own flags on their own projects. But for financial reasons, they are now seeing that they should be sharing."
Many recipients, she added, prefer working with the Commission than with national donors, especially if they are those of their former colonial overlords. She mentioned Tanzania as a good example where coordination can be effective. The Commission is leading efforts to improve education there on behalf of a variety of donors, including the World Bank, she said, arguing that cooperation had been assisted by how many donors decided to locate themselves in the same building in capital Dar Es Salaam, following the 1998 terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassy there.
A Commission official handling development aid said "everyone recognises there are too many donors, so we will probably have to find political solutions."
The EU's code of coordination is designed to facilitate dialogue on how improvements can be effected, the official said. "It takes two to tango. The commitment to coordination is there from the Commission and it's also there from some member states. But practical problems have to be addressed in the field."
