If the application is rejected, the organisation is informed immediately. The organisation is informed and the contract is signed. Operations start up on the ground. An advance is therefore paid out upon receipt of the signed contract. The programme is completed and a description of the operation and the accounts are sent to ECHO within three months.
Projects generally last six months or less.
The agencies' common aim is to achieve a degree of decentralisation in Community activities and to develop scientific or technical know-how in their particular fields. Its mission is to cooperate technically with the Member Countries and to stimulate cooperation among them in order that, while maintaining a healthy environment and charting a course to sustainable human development, the peoples of the Americas may achieve Health for All and by All. The Organisation is thus entirely at the service of its Member countries. It forms a homogeneous entity in that each Member country is committed to the principles of the market economy and pluralistic democracy. As a regional arrangement under Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, the OSCE has been established as a primary instrument in its region for early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation in Europe.