COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 15.12.1995 
COM(95) 700 final 
FINAL REPORT ON THE PILOT SCHEME ON 
OPERATIONAL COORDINATION 
BETWEEN THE COMMUNITY AND ITS MEMBER STATES 
Proposals for consolidating and extending operational coordination 

FINAL REPORT ON THE PILOT SCHEME ON 
OPERATIONAL COORDINATION 
BETWEEN THE COMMUNITY AND ITS MEMBER STATES 
Proposals for consolidating and extending operational coordination 
INTRODUCTION 
In its resolution of 2 December 1993 on procedures for coordination between the 
Community and its Member States, which were complemented by its conclusions of 
6 May 1994, the Council decided to continue Community coordination on a trial basis 
in six countries in order to draw lessons that would help improve coordination in all 
developing countries which have a partnership relationship, with the EC. The six 
countries concerned are: Bangladesh, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Costa Rica, Ethiopia, 
Mozambique and Peru. 
After COREPER had approved the guidelines for the follow-up to operational 
coordination in the six pilot countries, the pilot scheme on operational coordination got 
off the ground in October 1994. In line with those guidelines the Commission submitted 
an interim progress report to the Council in May 1995.l 
At its meeting on 1 June 1995 the Council took cognizance of this interim report and 
confirmed its intention to have an in-depth discussion of the pilot scheme's results at its 
next meeting on the basis of the Commission's final report. 
This memo was drawn up in response to the Council's request and serves a twofold 
purpose: 
Reference for this report. 
A 
(a) to examine whether the provisional conclusions drawn in the interim report are still 
valid in the light of the developments since May 1995, and whether they should be 
adjusted; 
(b) table proposals for measures to be taken by the Council to: 
remedy any difficulties that have arisen in the process of strengthening 
coordination, 
extend the project to all developing countries which have a partnership 
relationship with the Community. 
I. Review of the interim report's main conclusions 
Note: as with the project on operational coordination, the report concerns the initial 
experience gathered in the context of other pilot projects on policy coordination (fight 
against poverty, health / AIDS). As those projects are to continue in 1996, this report 
confines itself to the conclusions relating to the operational coordination pilot exercise. 
1. Positive results 
The progress that had been made by May 1995 on strengthening operational coordination 
differed greatly from country to country, but a number of highly positive results can be 
identified: 
better mutual knowledge of support measures taken by those involved through 
regular information exchange and regular meetings between the representatives 
of the Commission and Member States active on the ground; 
in some countries, identification of duplication of effort and shortcomings in 
European cooperation; 
in some cases, taking of common positions by the EC and Member States in the 
discussions with the government concerned and other donors. 
2. Difficulties and questions 
A number of difficulties did hinder or even hold back the process of strengthening 
coordination: 
too few staff in the Member States' and Commission's local offices to ensure 
proper coordination in all key areas; 
limited interest among certain Member States in EC coordination; 
questions about the role and the value of European coordination as against 
coordination among all donors; 
unsatisfactory follow-up of operational coordination by central departments; 
uncertainty over how the recipient country's should be involved in the 
coordination. 
3. Conclusions and proposals 
As the interim report concludes, by and large, that the process of strengthening 
operational coordination has got off to a positive start, the Commission therefore 
proposes, with a view to capitalizing on what has been achieved, that the Council: 
confirm the importance of strengthening coordination at the level of the 
Community to secure the active participation of all partners; 
explicitly spell out the importance of the "European" coordination, even where 
effective coordination with the community of donors already takes place; 
investigate the short and medium-term scope for remedying the lack of experts 
in the field offices; 
A series of accompanying measures was also put forward, in particular as regards 
improving the exchange of information between the representations on the ground and 
the competent authorities in Europe, promoting an exchange of experience between the 
delegations in the various pilot countries, and making better use of the existing dialogue 
machinery (in particular the EDF, ALA and MED management committees). 
n. Assessment against the background of recent experience 
Since the conclusions drawn in May, coordination efforts under way in all pilot countries 
have been actively continued. 
Two conclusions can be drawn from this experience: 
positive results have been achieved given that arrangements for regular swapping 
of experience and regular meetings have been introduced in all pilot countries, 
thus enhancing the complementarity of the measures taken by the various players 
and in some cases fostering a common approach at macroeconomic and/or 
sectoral level; 
some difficulties identified in May are still to be resolved and continue to hamper 
the strengthening of operational coordination. 
Beside these conclusions of a more general nature, there are other lessons to be drawn: 
On the plus side: 
in Costa Rica, most Member States are now connected to the EC development 
cooperation data base, which has been expanded to encompass development 
cooperation operations in other countries of the region; 
in Peru, it has been decided to set up a harmonized data processing system for 
EC development cooperation operations, which also includes data on the running 
of each form of operation (programming cycle, etc.) An information brochure on 
the EC's role in Peru is being prepared; 
in Bangladesh, an information brochure on EC action to combat poverty is being 
drawn up; 
in Côte d'Ivoire, implementation of the coordination work programme set up in 
November 1994 has made excellent headway. At the recent coordination meetings 
it was confirmed that donors should afford greater support to the country's 
government in devising appropriate measures for all sectors of the economy 
which must then form the framework for the various donors' operations. A 
shining example of this is the dialogue established between the donors and the 
Côte d'Ivoire authorities as part of preparations for the June 1995 advisory 
group; 
in Mozambique, a coordination work programme was approved, giving rise to 
regular meetings at the level of the mission heads and development cooperation 
experts. In June 1995, Italy and the Commission organized a conference in 
Mozambique on the private sector in conjunction with the World Bank, the 
private sector and major donors. This made a substantial contribution to reaching 
a consensus on the practical and operational measures required to build up a more 
viable private sector. 
in Ethiopia, the possibility of the European Community speaking with a single 
voice (e.g. in the education sector) at the general coordination meetings was 
considered. As part of the "Social Sector Review" coordinated by the World 
Bank, representatives of the Commission and the Member States agreed to form 
a single bloc and to carry out a common analysis. 
Difficulties that cropped up: 
the lack of personnel is particularly keenly felt in the Commission delegations in 
Peru and Costa Rica where a sizeable investment has been made in installing a 
harmonized data processing system for information exchange; steps must now be 
taken to ensure the continuity of this important coordination instrument; 
the need to improve the "qualitative" aspects of coordination, i.e. the 
complementarity and effectiveness of EC's and Member States' development 
cooperation policies, calls for common guidelines and the setting of sectoral 
priorities. 
III. Conclusions and proposals for the future 
The experience gathered over the last 12 months shows that, even though the situation 
differs widely from one country to the next, progress has been made overall towards 
enhancing coordination. 
In the six pilot countries, to differing degrees and in different ways, "phase I" of the 
process of strengthening coordination has by and large been carried through, i.e. putting 
in place a data base on EC development cooperation. In most cases the Commission 
delegation played a key role in this initial phase, a role warranted by the need for 
continuity in the management of this information tool and by the Commission's 
traditional role as a repository of knowledge in such matters. 
Positive results have been achieved but the pilot scheme also shed light on certain 
difficulties which got in the way of the drive to enhance coordination. 
If the European Community, which accounts for 50% of development aid, is to exert the 
influence it should be bringing to bear in this field it must redouble its efforts towards 
achieving greater coordination of development policies and action in its midst. 
To achieve that goal, the strenuous efforts being made to enhance coordination should 
be extended to embrace aU the EC's partners in the developing world and suitable 
measures taken to eliminate the problems pinpointed during the pilot scheme. 
As for extending the intensive efforts in the field of coordination, the Commission feels 
that instructions should be issued soon to Commission and Member State representations 
in all developing countries to ensure that the resolution of 2 December 1993, along with 
more recent resolutions and conclusions regarding coordination and complementarity, are 
implemented as swiftly as possible. Since the guidelines set up for the pilot scheme have 
proved their worth, they should be extended, possibly with minor adjustments, to all 
other countries. 
To capitalize on the investment that went into setting up "EC development cooperation" 
data bases in the pilot countries, the Commission will be examining how such data bases, 
wherever possible along similar lines as the existing ones, can be introduced in all its 
partner developing countries. 
As regards measures to resolve the difficulties encountered, the Commission confirms 
the conclusions of the May interim report. Those conclusions should prompt the Council 
to: 
(i) reaffirm the importance of strengthening coordination with a view to ensuring 
active involvement of all the partners concerned; 
(ii) underscore the importance of coordination at European level, even where 
effective coordination with the donor community at large already exists, and 
highlight: 
- the three objectives of European coordination: development (effectiveness of 
cooperation), consistency (observance of decisions taken in Brussels) and 
political purpose (maximizing the influence of the EC as a whole); 
- the role of European coordination as an input into broader coordination with 
the community of donors; 
(iii) examine the short and longer-term scope for remedying the shortage of specialists 
in the local representations on the ground; 
(iv) make additional efforts to use the programming phase of Community and 
bilateral assistance in order to optimize the complementarity of the action and 
approaches of all the parties concerned. 
The Council could therefore take the following measures or issue the necessary 
instructions to its departments so that: 
systematic and better exchange of information takes place between 
representations on the ground and the competent authorities in Europe with a 
view to consolidating coordination efforts at local level; 
at the level of Commission and Member State representations on the ground, 
progress is made in the macroeconomic and sectoral spheres - in consultation 
with the government of the country concerned - to set up a common approach 
on the priorities, strategies and conditions for providing assistance; 
lay down conditions applying to each country for involving the recipient country 
in the coordination process, notably via discussions on government's 
macroeconomic and sectoral policies which the EC wishes to support; 
make more active use of existing dialogue machinery, in particular the EDF, 
ALA and MED management committees, in order to make the EC's and the 
Member States' development cooperation strategies and operations complement 
each other better,2 and to ensure that those strategies fit in with the common 
guidelines laid down by the Council ; 
set up communication channels between the Commission delegations and 
Members States' representations, on the one hand, and Member States not 
represented in the pilot countries (but which nonetheless finance aid projects 
there), on the other. Those Member States have an interest in being kept abreast 
of the results of operational coordination so that they can take them into account 
in identifying new projects in these countries. 
The Commission should take the requisite measures to: 
assume responsibility for introducing and managing arrangements for information 
exchange between the delegations, notably for updating data on EC development 
cooperation; 
help produce - within the framework of the groups of experts and contacts with 
the management committees - guidelines for action and sectoral priorities to be 
followed by both Member States and the Community. 
In keeping with the Commission's communication to the Council and Parliament of 3 May 1995 (COM(95) 160) on 
complementarity between the Community's development cooperation policy and the policies of Member States. 
Annex I 
Sectoral priorities for operational coordination in the pilot countries and 
initiation of such coordination 
Sector/area 
Fight against poverty 
Health care 
Education/training 
Food security/agriculture 
Transport/energy/communications 
Macroeconomic reform 
SMEs 
Human rights 
Institutions 
Commodities 
Environment Pilot countries1 
CR 
ES 
ES 
EC 
D 
EC 
EC 
NL Côt 
B 
F 
D 
EC 
EC 
EC 
UK Eth 
IT 
SW 
NL 
D Mz2 
EC 
3 
EC 
EC 
EC Per 
EC 
F 
D 
ES Ban 
EC 
CR = Costa Rica; Côt=Côte d'Ivoire; Eth=Ethiopia; Mz=Mozambique ; Per=Peru ; Ban=Bangladesh 
As in Mozambique, operational coordination is not yet formalized at the level of mission heads and 
the tasks of initiation not yet decided as between Commission and Member States. Until this decision 
is taken, the Commission has put coordination in place in the sectors concerned. 
Coordination by Switzerland (CH); the EC and Member States are taking part. Where a subject is 
of particular interest to the EU, the EC and Switzerland take a joint coordination initiative. 
ISSN 0254-1475 
COM(95) 700 final 
DOCUMENTS 
EN U 
Catalogue number : CB-C0-95-734-EN-C 
ISBN 92-77-98237-3 
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 
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