14.

The agreement focuses on: — the main approach for actions financed under the NDICI - Global Europe is through geographic programmes, in order to maximise the impact of the Union's assistance and bring the Union's action closer to partner countries and populations. This general approach is complemented by thematic programmes and rapid response actions, whilst ensuring the consistency and coherence of all programmes and actions, — a balance between the procedural provisions and the global scope of the Instrument. In particular, it was agreed that programming documents for geographic and thematic programmes will be adopted by means of implementing acts and the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts notably to amend the maximum amount for CBDSD actions, the maximum amount for the External Action Guarantee, the maximum provisioning amount and the provisioning rates, the areas of cooperation and intervention listed in Annexes II, III and IV, the priority areas of the EFSD+ operations listed in Annex V and the list of key performance indicators in Annex VI, as well as to supplement the Regulation with specific objectives, priority areas of cooperation, thematic targets and indicative financial allocations, for the selected sub-regions, and with provisions on the establishment of a monitoring and evaluation framework, — a comprehensive, coordinated and focused approach through in particular the implementation of the policy first principle based on an extended policy framework, covering also European Parliament resolutions (Article 7) and on an inclusive dialogue, the choice that the committee will be able to convene in different formats in charge of specific areas of intervention, such as geographic, thematic and rapid response actions and that Member States will have the possibility to request the examination of any other matter concerning the implementation of the Regulation, in particular with regard to multi-annual programming documents, including mid-term or ad-hoc reviews and evaluations, — the realisation of the objectives of the Instrument is further ensured through a set of spending targets which, with the exception of the ODA target, have been included in the recitals and aim at ensuring that funds will be allocated along the following lines: at least 93 % as ODA; 30 % for climate objectives; at least 85 % of actions for gender equality, of which at least 5 % is to be dedicated for G2, at least 20 % of ODA for social inclusion and human development; and a ceiling of up to 5 % for cross-border cooperation under the Neighbourhood envelope. The NDICI - Global Europe will also contribute to the overall MFF biodiversity target (recital 48), — the Instrument will also contribute to the Union's comprehensive response to challenges, needs and opportunities related to migration and forced displacement in coherence and complementarity with Union migration policy, in particular as indicatively 10 % of the NDICI financial envelope will be dedicated particularly to actions supporting management and governance of irregular migration and forced displacement, and also to actions addressing their root causes, — the External Lending Mandate will be extended (Article 49(1)) and the assets will be transferred into the common provisioning fund (Article 31(8)), — the new European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus ('EFSD+'), built on its predecessor, the European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD) is established and, together with the External Action Guarantee, may support financing and investment operations in the form of grants, budgetary guarantees and financial instruments in partner countries in the geographical areas covered by the NDICI - Global Europe as well as operations in beneficiaries of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance III, — the role of the European Investment Bank is further specified and the bank is entrusted with the implementation of an exclusive dedicated investment window for operations with sovereign and non-commercial sub-sovereign counterparts, and, where appropriate, additional non-exclusive dedicated windows for operations with commercial sub-sovereign counterparts and operations for the promotion of foreign direct investment, trade and the internationalisation of partner countries’ economies, — a comprehensive approach to the financing of actions in the Neighbourhood is further ensured through the addition of provisions on the specific objectives of the neighbourhood area (Article 18, moved from Annex II) and on multi-country programmes (Article 21), — the definition of actions and measures that cannot be supported under NDICI (excluded activities in Article 29), — the specification, in the recitals, of the use of the emerging challenges and priorities cushion and of the possibility to suspend assistance in case of degradation in democracy, human rights and rule of law in third countries, — the definition of an indicative set of key performance indicators to be used to help measure the Union’s contribution to the achievement of the specific objectives of the Regulation (Annex VI), — the Regulation's retroactive application from 1 January 2021 (Articles 27(4) and 50 and recitals 60 and 85).