Commission staff working paper

Aid management

Humanitarian aid is often delivered in an emergency and/or situations where access to beneficiaries is difficult due to logistical or security constraints. To make sure that the best use is made of public funds under these circumstances, the Commission pursues an active relationship with its stakeholders and has put in place various monitoring and co-ordination mechanisms. Some of their key features are described below.

1. Ways and means of delivering aid

The EU is the only humanitarian donor to have a worldwide network of field experts who play a key role in assessing the humanitarian needs and monitoring the EU-funded operations. The aid itself is implemented by a limited number of humanitarian organisations, which have both the financial and operational capacity to manage emergency operations in often difficult circumstances.

1. Experts in the field

The Commission manages its humanitarian activities from its headquarters in Brussels via a network of more than 40 field offices all over the world.

In order to meet the target set by the post-tsunami action plan of January 2005, the Commission has consolidated its network of field experts with the aim of organising multi-sectoral rapid response teams. This allows it to dispatch its field experts and programme assistants rapidly in response to new crises to carry out humanitarian needs assessments and help co-ordinate humanitarian activities in the field.

By the end of 2009, more than 100 experts and 300 local staff were in place. New field offices had been opened in Port au Prince (Haiti) and Gaza and the one in Islamabad (Pakistan) had been re-opened.

2. Relations with partners

The Commission does not intervene directly on the ground, but implements its mandate by funding about 200 partners ranging from non-governmental organisations, United Nations agencies, other international organisations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies and specialised agencies of EU Member States.

Having a diverse range of partners is important for the Commission since it allows comprehensive coverage of an ever-growing list of needs in different parts of the world and in increasingly complex situations. Grants and contributions are decided on the basis of the best proposals covering the needs of the most vulnerable beneficiaries.

Relations between ECHO and its implementing partners are governed by Framework Partnership Agreements (FPA), which define the roles and responsibilities in humanitarian operations financed by the European Union. The FPAs govern relations with both non-governmental organisations (NGO) and international organisations (IO).

In the case of United Nations agencies, the Financial and Administrative Framework Agreement between the EC and UN (FAFA) sets out the general legal framework governing relations between them in the domain of humanitarian aid.

Further information on these Agreements is available on ECHO’s website at: http://EU.europa.eu/echo/about/actors/partners_en.htm.

In 2009, the relative shares of funding for these three categories of partners were:

However, the figures from 2007 on are not entirely comparable with those for previous years, due to the creation of the humanitarian food aid budget line under which a significant portion of food aid is implemented by a small number of UN and international organisations.

In 2009, the relative shares of funding for food aid for the three categories of partners were: UN 59%, NGOs 37% and IO 4%.

2. Co-ordination of humanitarian funds

Various mechanisms are in place to ensure the co-ordination of the humanitarian funds implemented by ECHO with those of other humanitarian actors involved in response.

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  Co-ordination with Member States is ensured by regular meetings with their representatives in the Humanitarian Aid Committee (HAC) which, in accordance with the Humanitarian Aid Regulation, gives an opinion on all funding decisions exceeding € 2 million⁴⁹ before they are adopted by the Commission. In January 2009, in line with the European Consensus on Humanitarian Aid, a dedicated working group in the Council was set up to cover humanitarian and food aid issues — the ‘Council Working Group on Humanitarian Aid and Food Aid’ (COHAFA);
  
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  When a disaster strikes or whilst tracking existing humanitarian operations, Commission experts also take the opportunity to keep up to date with the funds being considered or made available by other humanitarian organisations, including other donors and agencies in both the private and public sectors;
  
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  The Commission organises annual meetings with its major partners, in particular United Nations organisations and international organisations (e.g. the Red Cross), to co-ordinate strategies and funding (‘strategic dialogue’ (SD) meetings);
  
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  Co-ordination with NGOs is ensured via a dedicated network (VOICE) and an annual conference with partners; and
  
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  An IT application has been developed to collect humanitarian aid contributions from EU Member States (called the ‘14-points application’). This database⁵⁰, which is accessible to anyone⁵¹, gives details of the global EU (EU + Member States) humanitarian assistance provided by year and country. The system is linked to the OCHA⁵² Financial Tracking System (FTS).
  

The core objective of the 14-points application is to cover all humanitarian aid contributions, whichever government department is responsible for them. The definition of what constitutes humanitarian aid — and therefore should be reported — is a difficult question and Member States have developed their own working definitions.

In 2009, humanitarian aid contributions totalling € 2 248 million were reported in ECHO’s 14-points application, of which 59% were from Member States and 41% from EU funds.

On the whole, approximately the same countries benefited from humanitarian aid from the Member States and from the EU. The two complex emergencies dating back to previous years — Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo — are the biggest recipients with more than one third of the total allocated to the top 10 beneficiaries.

Looking at the top 10 recipients, 70% of the funding went to African countries in 2009, with the balance going to the occupied Palestinian territories, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Looking at the geographical breakdown of the total funding in 2009, as planned, the largest share went to African countries (46.7%), 13% to Asia and 10.3% to the Mediterranean and Middle East region. The 21.5% classified as ‘other’ stand for contributions allocated to unspecified countries, meaning mainly to UN agencies and other humanitarian aid activities.

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