13.
DG Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid
Good
OVERVIEW
DG DEVCO is responsible for formulating EU Development policy and for delivering development cooperation worldwide. Within the context of the new Multiannual Financial Framework (2014–2020) DG DEVCO manages a number of financing instruments, most notably the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI), and the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), in addition to implementing EU cooperation with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and Overseas Countries and Territories through the 11th European Development Fund for the same period. See EC-wide commitments and recommendations.
DG DEVCO was the first EC department to publish to IATI in 2011 and has continued to improve its publication in 2014, by including forward-looking budgets, geo-coded location data and dates. DG DEVCO should be congratulated for this progress and for outlining more ambitious plans for publishing to IATI in its June 2014 implementation schedule. It currently plans to publish 87% of the assessed IATI fields by the end of 2015. DG DEVCO convenes an internal working group spearheading improvements in publication across other EC departments and is leading efforts on the EU-DEVFIN platform for enhancing ODA reporting capacity and systems.
ANALYSIS
DG DEVCO scores 68.2%, placing it in the good category. It ranks ninth out of 17 multilateral organisations. DG DEVCO has made good progress in several areas in 2014, with an increase of over 15 percentage points since the 2013 ATI. The improvement in performance can be attributed to the publication of new information fields in IATI, including forward-looking organisation financial information, country strategies, activity dates and geo-coded location information, and the launch of its new open data portal. DG DEVCO performs well on organisation planning documents, activity classifications and basic information but does poorly on the provision of activity-level documents and performance information (results, conditions and impact appraisals), particularly the latter for which it does not score any points. It scores on 32 of the 39 indicators included in the Index. Of the 22 indicators that take format into account, 20 are published in machine-readable formats.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- DG DEVCO should continue to improve its publication to IATI so it is comprehensive and includes links to project documents, results and conditions data.
- It should ensure that the new internal Operating System is fully compatible with IATI and allows for automated and timely publication of information.
- DG DEVCO should work with the European External Action Service (EEAS) to use IATI data in EU programming and coordination processes. It should promote the access and use of this information by others, including by improving the integration of IATI data in the EU Aid Explorer and supporting data use within partner countries.
- The EC should continue to champion transparency, accountability and open data in international fora – including discussions on the post-2015 agenda – and within the EU, in particular by supporting Member State publication to IATI by 2015.
DONOR PROFILE
First published to IATI:
Oct-11
2013 ATI Score:
52.11%
2013 ATI Rank:
13