EC support to projects
3.4.1 When is a project appropriate?
As noted, EC policy is to increase its use of Budgetary Aid and Sector Policy Support Programmes and increasingly transfer responsibility for projects to local partners (Governments, local governments and non-public entities).
Nevertheless, the project will remain an appropriate aid delivery modality in a range of circumstances, including:
• Decentralised cooperation with non-public entities.
The Commission will continue to directly support initiatives being implemented outside the public sector, such as through NGOs, the private sector and civil society groups.
• Emergency aid and post-crisis interventions.
There will be circumstances when partner govern-ments do not have the capacity to effectively meet the needs of people in emergency or post-crisis situations, and when projects may therefore remain the most practical and effective option for delivering short-term humanitarian assistance.
• Technical assistance projects or ‘pilot’ projects to build capacity.
In some circumstances, individual donor managed projects can encourage innovation and learning, through promoting new methodologies or ways of working. For example, the Commission may directly fund technical assistance to support the piloting of new public sector management processes (including support to sector policy and programme development).
Figure 3 – The mix of aid delivery methods
• Regional environmental projects or international public goods.
When the expected benefits are very long term or when they spill over national boundaries (e.g.
regional environmental management), govern-ments may not be providing funding at socially optimal levels. The Commission may therefore have a role in directly funding such initiatives.
• Investment projects with high transaction costs for governments.
Donor managed projects might be a preferable aid mechanism where the transaction costs are lower for the donor than for the partner government. This might be the case for large international tenders (e.g. for airport or harbour development) where the partner government does not possess the necessary capacity to effectively manage the overall contracting process (such as for some smaller island nations).
• When conditions within a country or sector do not yet allow other approaches to be used.
As has been noted in the section on the Sector Programme approach and Budgetary Aid, certain conditions need to be met before either of these two approaches/tools can be effectively used. In the meantime, projects will continue to be an aid delivery option as long as they can demonstrate that they support the delivery of sustainable benefits and do not impact negatively on local institutional capacity.
It is also worth noting that some of the analytical tools associated with the project approach can also be usefully applied to the analysis and management of Sector Policy Support Programmes and Budgetary Aid operations. Examples include the use of the Logical Framework Approach (including stakeholder analysis, problems analysis, objective setting etc), institutional capacity assessment, the identification of key indicators and sources of verification, and economic and financial analysis.
3.4.2 Improving the quality of projects
There is certainly scope to continue to improve the quality of new (and ongoing) projects by addressing the identified weaknesses in the ‘donor controlled’
project approach. For example, projects can be identified, formulated and implemented which:
This will require ongoing changes in the way that staff within the RELEX family do business, including changes in: (i) attitudes and values; (ii) roles and responsibilities; (iii) skills; and (iv) procedures.
For example:
Change in Attitudes
Views on ‘accountability’ need to place greater emphasis on (i) accountability for results (not only expenditure targets or activities undertaken), and (ii) accountability to local partners, including targeted beneficiaries, rather than only to donor ‘audit’
requirements. Related to this point, attitudes about
‘who is in control’ need to give greater appreciation to the importance of local ownership, and the practical ways in which this can be supported. There is also a need for a more inclusive approach, taking into account all the differences in society, including such issues as disability, age and gender.
Change in Roles and responsibilities
More management and decision making responsi-bility needs to be effectively given to the EC’s implementing partners. The EC is, in most cases, not responsible for implementing projects. It is responsible for assessing the quality of proposals, facilitating their formulation, providing finance, monitoring progress (ideally through locally based monitoring systems), and evaluating results in order to support institutional learning and improve future programming decisions. The EC’s primary role is to support institutions/agencies in partner countries to carry out their programmes and projects.
• Are more clearly consistent with the policy framework;
• Integrate with and support local
planning/budgeting, management, financing and monitoring systems (rather than creating parallel systems);
• Are better coordinated with other donors;
• Build local capacity and rely less on expatriate technical assistance;
• Take a longer-term (and more realistic) perspective of the process of change; and
• Allow greater flexibility during implementation
Skills
There is a need to expand the skill sets among EC staff, both at HQ and Delegations. Better under-standing of some key analytical tools is required, including how to engage in (and interpret) the results of policy, sector and institutional analysis.
Developing a better understanding of partner govern-ment’s planning, budgeting and financial manage-ment systems is also critical. Effective use of the Logical Framework Approach also needs to be further strengthened, while team work and cross-cultural communication skills are also a high priority in the context of establishing effective working relationships between EC staff, implementing partners and other stakeholders.
Procedures
As highlighted by EC evaluations of projects implemented under the ALA, MEDA and ACP programmes, there is also a need for ongoing changes to promote streamlining and harmonisation of financial management and contracting procedures and regulations within the Commission.
This cycle highlights three main principles:
1. Decision making criteria and procedures are defined at each phase (including key information requirements and quality assessment criteria);
2. The phases in the cycle are progressive – each phase should be completed for the next to be tackled with success;13and
3. New programming and project identification draws on the results of monitoring and evaluation as part of a structured process of feedback and institutional learning.
In practice, the duration and importance of each phase of the cycle will vary for different projects, depending on their scale and scope and on the specific operating modalities under which they are set up. For example, a large and complex engineering project may take many years to pass from the identification through to the implementation phase, whereas a project to provide emergency assistance in a post-conflict context may only take a few weeks or months to commence operations on the ground. Nevertheless, ensuring that adequate time and resources are committed to project identification and formulation is critical to supporting the design and effective implementation of relevant and feasible projects.
13It should be noted that the type of evaluation referred to in this diagram is ‘ex-post’ or ‘after project completion’, while it is possible to conduct ‘formative