ECA’s international conference on European development aid
On 20 and 21 October, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) hosted an international conference in Luxembourg on EU development aid policy.
The event took place under Luxembourg’s presidency of the EU Council as part of the effort to redefine the UN’s millennium goals, during the European Year for Development. Participants included high level representatives from EU institutions, the UN and Luxembourg’s authorities, experts from OECD and the World Bank, national supreme audit institutions and academics. A number of ambassadors from developing countries and NGOs participated.
The European Union is the world’s biggest donor, contributing 60% of all development aid. So for the ECA as guardians of EU finances, spending on development projects is an important area to audit.
Development aid provided as part of the Millennium Objectives has led to significant progress in terms of reducing poverty and infant mortality, as well as in health, education and access to drinking water. The Sustainable Development Goals which replace them maintain the course already taken, but also have a much broader ambition involving both developed and developing countries addressing environmental challenges and setting objectives of gender equality, peace, justice and governance. Aid to development after 2015 will have to build successful partnerships between a greater number and more varied development stakeholders: traditional providers of public aid such as the United Nations, the EU and Member States, but also emerging countries, foundations and private companies, each of them having its own governance and strategy.
Financing development also involves a wide set of instruments ranging from public aid (grants, loans, budget support) to blending instruments and private-public partnerships. Beneficiary countries should also increase their own national resources by improving tax collection and income deriving from their natural resources.
Seeking enhanced effectiveness of the aid is a challenge: it requires better monitoring and supervision systems in countries where governance is often weak. The number of uncertainties highlighted by the economists in this assessment, the practical difficulties met by audit institutions to perform their missions, show how much remains to be done. The challenge of measurement is also linked to the availability of reliable and timely statistical data in developing countries: 61% of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa do not have sufficient data to identify poverty levels.
All participants agreed that the challenges of sustainable development should be better apprehended, and the awareness of citizens, both in Europe and elsewhere, raised.