Special Report No 2/2003 on the implementation of the food security policy in developing countries financed by the general budget of the European Union, together with the Commission's replies
Date: 2003-02-13
Institutions: European Court of Auditors
Subjects: developing countries, development aid, exchange of information, financing, food policy, food safety, general budget, management, project evaluation

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I

(Information)

COURT OF AUDITORS

SPECIAL REPORT No 2/2003

on the implementation of the food security policy in developing countries financed by the general
budget of the European Union, together with the Commission’s replies

(pursuant to Article 248(4), second subparagraph, EC)

(2003/C 93/01)

CONTENTS

Paragraph

Page

SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The global situation on food security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The move from food aid to food security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I-XII

1-9

1-2

3-9

THE COURT’S AUDIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10-16

Previous audits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The audit objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Audit approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

OBSERVATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The legal framework and the concept of food security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Recipient countries’ strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Baseline information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The evaluation required by the Council Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Overall management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Budgetary implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The management structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Management information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Preparation of the interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Evaluation and audits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Donor coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10

11

12-16

17-87

17-21

22-34

29-31

32-34

35-47

35-36

37-45

46-47

48-77

48-51

52-54

55-69

70-72

73-77

78-87

3

4

4

4

5

5

5

6

6

6

7

7

8

8

8

10

11

11

11

11

12

13

13

14

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Paragraph

Page

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88-102

The policy and Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Food security programmes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Baseline data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88-93

94-95

96-98

Management information in central services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99-100

Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101-102

ANNEXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Commission’s replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

15

15

16

16

16

17

24

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SUMMARY

I.
At the World Food Summit in Rome in November 1996, the Heads of State or Government committed
themselves to halving the number of undernourished people from 800 million to 400 million, by 2015. The
focus should move from food aid towards more long-term development aid to improve the food security situ-
ations (see paragraphs 1 to 2).

At about the same time, Council Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 (1) was adopted with the aim of enhanc-

II.
ing food security and reducing the recipient countries’ dependence on food aid (see paragraphs 3 to 9).

III.
The Court’s audit focused on the steps taken by all parties involved to achieve the food security objec-
tives set out in the Council Regulation, i.e. the formulation of countries’ strategies, the management of actions,
the adequacy of information and coordination with other donors (see paragraphs 10 to 16).

IV.
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 introduced a long-term development approach on food security, thus
moving away from short-term food aid. However, as the causes of food insecurity are broad, this problem can
only effectively be dealt with in the context of an overall comprehensive development policy (see para-
graphs 17 to 21).

V.
Food security strategies in a number of recipient countries were not integrated in coherent national
development strategies, and programmes on food security were executed as development programmes sepa-
rate from the mainstream programmes (see paragraphs 25 to 28).

VI.
Reliable baseline information on the situation of food security was not available in the countries visited
by the Court, and the production of statistics by the national services was in most of the cases inadequate (see
paragraphs 29 to 31).

VII.
The evaluation required by Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 identified a number of important problems
but concluded that it was too early to assess the impact and effectiveness of the Regulation (see paragraphs 32
to 34).

VIII.
The Commission’s structure complicates the coordination between its services in respect of food
security operations. Moreover, at the Commission’s services in Brussels, information was not readily available
on the status of the implementation of the programmes (see paragraphs 38, 46 and 47).

IX.
Identification of projects was unstructured in many countries, with no formal procedures for the selec-
tion of projects on the basis of clear priorities and criteria (see paragraphs 52 and 53). The local population
was hardly involved in proposing and selecting projects. Structures to support local communities to manage
projects are rarely in place. Most of the central government’s services had delegated the management of food
security programmes to specific (para-statal) bodies, which hinders the integration of development actions in
sustainable structures (see paragraphs 55 to 72).

Very few evaluations have been carried out. Audits are undertaken but are not done on an annual basis

X.
(see paragraphs 73 to 77).

Coordination between the Commission and the other donors (in particular EU Member States) was at

XI.
best limited to an exchange of information in most of the countries (see paragraphs 78 to 87).

(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 of 27 June 1996 on food aid policy and food aid management and special oper-

ations in support of food security (OJ L 166, 5.7.1996, p. 1).

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XII.

On the basis of its observations, the Court recommends that:

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

the concept of food security should be integrated in the Commission’s overall development policy, and
single overall strategies and programmes should be developed for and by the recipient countries (see
paragraphs 88 to 90);

consideration should be given, in the context of the new evaluation of food security support, to discon-
tinuing Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 in its present form and to integrating all development actions,
including those on food security, in a limited number of comprehensive regulations. Consequently, the
structure of the budget headings under B-7 (external actions) should be modified (see paragraphs 91 to
93);

as long as separate food security programmes are developed, they should be multiannual (see para-
graphs 94 and 95);

the Commission should consider supporting developing countries to ensure that reliable baseline infor-
mation is produced on socioeconomic household situations. Indicators on food security should be devel-
oped with other donors (see paragraphs 96 to 98);

there should be a regular exchange of financial information between the Commission’s central services
and its delegations (see paragraphs 99 and 100);

the Commission should continue to focus its efforts on capacity-building and institutional support to
beneficiary countries’ central and local services (see paragraphs 101 and 102).

INTRODUCTION

The global situation on food security

1.
In 1996, the number of undernourished people in the
world was estimated at some 800 million. At the World Food
Summit in Rome hosted by the United Nations Food and Agri-
culture Organisation (FAO) in 1996, the Heads of State or Gov-
ernment committed themselves to halving the number of under-
nourished people to 400 million by 2015 (1). However, at present
the number of people in the developing countries not receiving
enough food is still 800 million (2). The annual decrease of 8 mil-
lion so far achieved was just enough to compensate for the effects
of the growth of the world population. To achieve the target, tak-
ing a continued growth of the world population into account, the
yearly reduction between 2002 and 2015 needs to be about
35 million.

2.
In central, southern and eastern Africa, the number of the
undernourished is at present estimated at 153 million people,
44 % of the total population. The situation is even worse in
Afghanistan, Haiti, North Korea and Mongolia, where there are
34 million undernourished people, representing 62 % of the total
population. However, the greatest absolute number of undernour-
ished people live in India, China and Bangladesh: altogether 395
million persons (about 20 % of the population), representing
about half of the worldwide undernourished (2).

The move from food aid to food security

3.
Since about 1994 there has been a worldwide process
aimed at integrating food aid into the development policies and
food security strategies of recipient countries. This has brought
about a shift from relief to development assistance addressing
structural food insecurity.

(1) This corresponds with the overall objective, formulated by the United
Nations, to reduce the poverty in the world by 50 % during the same
period. It was confirmed by the World Food Summit in Rome on 10
to 13 July 2002.

(2) All figures are taken from the FAO’s ‘Assessment of the world food
security situation’ published by the Committee on World Food Secu-
rity after its Rome session of 28 May 2001 to 1 June 2001.

4.
This change in global thinking was reflected at the World
Food Summit in November 1996. In the so-called ‘Rome Declara-
tion on World Food Security’, the Heads of State or Govern-
ment (3) emphasised sustainable food security and poverty eradi-
cation. According to the Summit’s plan of action, food security

(3) This includes the European Community.

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exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic
access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and safe food to meet
their needs for an active and healthy life (1).

To focus its interventions on the most vulnerable coun-
8.
tries, prior to implementation, the Commission has selected 21
priority countries (3) for structural interventions and a further 11
countries (4) and the territory of Palestine which are regarded as
being in a crisis or post-crisis situation.

5.
The Summit stressed that poverty eradication is essential
to improve access to food. In this context, increased domestic
food production (in combination with food imports) must go
hand in hand with an increase in household incomes needed to
purchase food.

6.
The Community’s policy has also changed considerably in
the meantime: the focus has shifted from short-term food aid in
kind to seeking long-term food security supporting sustainable
development, economic growth and poverty reduction. This shift
in global thinking was reflected in the Council Regulation (EC)
No 1292/96 on food security which stressed that food aid can
only provide a partial and short-term solution to food insecurity
and that long-term policies on food security should be a part of
the overall fight against poverty. In practical terms this has meant
a move from aid in kind to financial and technical aid.

9.
Following an external evaluation of the implementation of
Council Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 the Commission in Septem-
ber 2001 adopted a communication to be submitted to the Euro-
pean Parliament and to the Council. This communication
(COM(2001) 473) and the relevant Council conclusions (15390/
01) were further steps to fully integrate food aid and food security
objectives and instruments into the Commission’s development
policy and cooperation.

THE COURT’S AUDIT

Previous audits

7.
Council Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 replaces five former
separate Regulations (2). It integrates food aid into a broader food
security strategy. The main objectives of the Regulation can be
summarised as follows:

10.
The Court has already adopted four special reports (5) on
food aid, the last two of which were published in 1988. The Court
has also devoted parts of its Annual Reports to food aid (6). This
report is the first concerned with food security aspects.

(a)

enhancing food security geared to alleviating poverty in the
recipient countries;

The audit objectives

(b)

reducing the recipient countries’ dependence on food aid;

(c)

contributing to the countries’ balanced economic and social
development.

(1) Point 1 of the plan of action of the World Food Summit attached to
the ‘Rome Declaration on World Food Security’ of 13 November 1996.
(2) — Council Regulation (EEC) No 3972/86 of 22 December 1986 on

food aid policy and food aid management

— Council Regulation (EEC) No 1755/84 of 19 June 1984 on the
implementation in relation to food of alternative operations in
place of food aid deliveries

— Council Regulation (EEC) No 2507/88 of 4 August 1988 on the
implementation of storage programmes and early warning sys-
tems

— Council Regulation (EEC) No 2508/88 of 4 August 1988 on the
implementation of co-financing operations for the purchase of
food products or seeds by international bodies or non-
governmental organisations

— Council Regulation (EEC) No 1420/87 of 21 May 1987 laying
down implementing rules for Regulation (EEC) No 3972/86 on
food aid policy and food aid management.

The overall objective of the Court’s audit was to deter-
11.
mine whether the Commission has taken all reasonable steps to
achieve the food security objectives set out in Regulation (EC)
No 1292/96. More particularly, the audit objectives dealt with:

(a)

the formulation of the Commission’s and the recipient coun-
tries’ food security strategies, including their consistency
with other EU development policies;

(3) Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Haiti, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar,
Malawi, Mauritania, Moldova, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Peru
and Yemen.

(4) Afganistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Liberia,
North Korea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Tajikistan.
(5) Special Report No 7/87 on the management of counterpart funds in
respect of food aid (OJ C 31, 4.2.1988); Special Report No 6/87 on
food aid to India (same OJ); Special Report No 1/87 on the quality of
food aid (OJ C 219, 17.8.1987); Special Report No 8/80 of 30 october
1980 on the Community’s food aid (not published).

(6) Annual Reports concerning the financial years 1992 (OJ C 309,
16.11.1993, pp. 205 to 216), 1989 (OJ C 313, 12.12.1990, pp. 178 to
181), 1988 (OJ C 312, 12.12.1989, pp. 145 to 148 and 153 to 154).

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(b)

(c)

the identification, implementation, monitoring and evalua-
tion of actions and the consistency with other development
aid programmes, projects or actions;

OBSERVATIONS

the adequacy of information (completeness, relevancy, reli-
ability and timeliness) at the level of central and local man-
agement;

The legal framework and the concept of food security

(d)

consistency, complementarity and coordination between the
EU and other donors, in particular EU Member States.

Audit approach

12.
The audit focused primarily on the implementation dur-
ing the period 1997 to 2001 of the Community’s food security
policy under Regulation (EC) No 1292/96, as financed by Chapter
B7-2 0 of the general budget of the European Union. The consis-
tency and complementarity with actions financed from other
sources (external actions financed by other EU budget headings
and the European Development Funds (EDFs)) was examined.

13.
The starting point for the audit was the Commission’s
management at central and local level involving the examination
of how the Commission dealt with issues of food security strategy
and how it organised itself to implement its policy.

A number of beneficiary countries (1) were visited to
14.
establish how projects had been identified, assessed, implemented
and monitored. For this purpose, a number of projects were
selected to assess the extent to which they were consistent and
coordinated and which steps have been taken to ensure that food
security could be improved in a sustainable way. In particular, the
Court examined the extent to which the central and local authori-
ties and the local communities had been involved in the whole
process. Annex 1 shows the situation of undernourishment in
these countries.

15.
The extent of coordination between the EU and other
donors, in particular Member States, was examined at both cen-
tral and local level.

17.
The innovative aspect of Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 was
that it integrated food aid into a development policy with a multi-
annual approach to food security and poverty alleviation, con-
tributing to a balanced economic and social development of the
recipient countries. One of the key elements of this regulation
was to add a new demand-based approach of increasing the pur-
chasing power of the vulnerable groups of the population to the
existing supply-based approach of increasing local food produc-
tion (or imports).

18.
The concept of food security is broad. Food insecurity,
whether in the sense of non-availability of food or inaccessibility
of food, is caused by a great number of factors, most of them
being structural. Short-term actions are usually in the form of
food aid and the focus of food security is thus normally on struc-
tural long-term causes. These can be, for example, unfavourable
climatic conditions, inadequate infrastructure, inadequate educa-
tional and health facilities, weak prospects of overall economic
growth, inadequate administration and weak governance.

19.
The factors underlying food insecurity are all causes of
poverty and lack of development. This means that a wide variety
of development actions is needed to improve the situation. Such
a variety was found in the Court’s examination of food security
projects of a number of countries financed from Chapter B7-2 0
in the 1997 to 2001 general budgets under Regulation (EC)
No 1292/96 (see Annex 2). Obviously, the mere existence of a
specific Council regulation and specific budget headings for the
improvement of food security does not lead to specific recognis-
able food security actions.

16.
Furthermore, visits were made to the FAO, the Food
Security and Food Aid Committee of the Council (FSFAC) and the
organisation responsible for the European network on food secu-
rity (RESAL).

(1) Bolivia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Madagascar, Niger and Yemen, selected on
the basis of the importance of the amounts of support for food secu-
rity given by the EU budget, including at least one of each of the geo-
graphical areas.

On the other hand, although Council Regulation (EC)
20.
No 1292/96 laid down a policy on food security and food aid it
does not govern development actions financed by the general
budget chapters for Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean
countries and by the EDFs for the African, Caribbean and Pacific
(ACP) States. The current situation leads to development pro-
grammes not well integrated with the mainstream programmes
financed by the general budget chapters for Asia, Latin America
and the Mediterranean countries and by the EDFs with the same
objectives of poverty alleviation, improving living conditions and
food security.

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The Regulation states that EC intervention must be inte-
21.
grated into the development policies and food strategies of the
recipient countries and must back up those countries’ own poli-
cies on poverty reduction (1). However, the aim of integrating
food security into the development policies and food strategies of
the developing countries was only achieved in two of the coun-
tries visited (Madagascar, Bolivia) whereas in the others the food
security programmes were implemented as separate development
programmes (see also paragraph 25).

Recipient countries’ strategies

22.
Before launching programmes, the Commission asked
the countries eligible for support to produce food security policy
papers as Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 stipulates that food aid
and food security operations must be integrated into a recipient
country’s long-term food security policy aimed at alleviating pov-
erty (2). Ideally, this policy should be embedded for each recipient
country in a single overall development strategy paper, in which
all relevant aspects, like poverty alleviation, food security, rural
development, development of the social sectors, should be cov-
ered. In the same spirit the aspects of food security should be
incorporated in the poverty reduction strategy papers established
by the developing countries under the guidance of the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

23.
In Madagascar, the action plan for rural development and
the interim document on the poverty reduction strategy are
complementary and well integrated. Both policy papers enumer-
ate detailed operations to be undertaken in the field of food secu-
rity and set clear priorities. They are characterised by a participa-
tory approach and are well integrated into the fight against poverty.
In addition, they are consistent with both the general policy strat-
egies of the Government and with the aims and objectives of
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96.

various strategies. Despite its importance in the context for food
security, none of the strategy documents dealt with land tenure
systems and land reform or environmental aspects. Equally, no
evidence was found that gender issues were taken into account,
contrary to Article 5 of the Council Regulation.

In Ethiopia, the 1996 food security strategy document,
26.
although giving a certain attention to key policy issues and to the
lack of purchasing power, puts much emphasis on agricultural
growth, implying that food insecurity in this country is mainly a
supply problem. In fact, the Ethiopian Government continued
with its traditional relief-oriented pattern of massive food aid in
kind (reaching a peak of 1,4 million tonnes in 2000). Apart from
not being an answer to structural food insecurity, it has negative
effects on prices on the local food market, and thereby on local
production and income. The interim poverty reduction strategy
paper for Ethiopia does not sufficiently deal with the structural
issues which are at the root of food insecurity and keeps insisting
on the need for continued food aid.

27.
In Georgia and Yemen, the national food security docu-
ments do not formulate priorities. Whereas Yemen’s strategy
paper rightly points out that it cannot become self-sufficient in
food production, the strategy does not indicate ways to improve
purchasing power and physical accessibility to food.

In Niger, the food security strategy paper is a good action
28.
plan rather than a strategy document because it does not set out
broad objectives. Although the Government approved this paper
in August 2000, it was still awaiting its practical implementation
at the moment of the Court’s visit to this country in June 2001.

24.
Bolivia’s national programme for food security is also
well integrated with its general economic and social development
programme, closely linked with the agricultural development
programme and consistent with the poverty reduction strategy in
terms of objectives and priority interventions domains.

Baseline information

In Ethiopia, Georgia, Niger and Yemen, however, the food
25.
security policies were not integrated into beneficiary countries’
overall development strategies. Instead, a number of stand-alone
strategies existed on, for example, agriculture, rural development
and food security, which caused confusion at the level of the
recipient countries as to the differences or similarities between the

29.
The formulation of targets concerning food security was,
and remains, constrained by the lack of reliable information on
the food security situation in the recipient countries, in particular
at household level. As a result, it is virtually impossible to deter-
mine the poorest segments of the population and to define the
most appropriate actions to be undertaken. It is, therefore, also
impossible to assess whether the stipulation (3) of the Council
Regulation that food security operations must improve the living
conditions of the poorest sections of the population in the recipi-
ent countries is being achieved.

(1) Article 1(4) and preamble, recitals 2 and 23.
(2) Recital 2 of the preamble, Article 1(4) and Article 2(2), last indent.

(3) Articles 3(3) and 6(3).

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National information on the economic situation of the
30.
households and on the food security situation of the most vulner-
able strata of the population is virtually inexistent in most of the
countries visited, and even the most basic data on agricultural
production, food stocks and food imports are frequently unreli-
able:

(a)

(b)

(c)

in Georgia, for instance, figures published by Government
services are neither reliable nor complete. It is estimated
that, due to smuggling and other forms of tax evasion, actual
imports of wheat are up to five times higher than the official
figures published by the national customs department;

in Niger, the information collected in the context of the early
warning system is not complete as it disregards pastoral areas
of the country and is therefore not reliable;

in Madagascar, Yemen and Niger, agricultural statistics and
other statistical information are outdated: the latest general
agricultural censuses were carried out up to 17 years ago.

(d)

the Commission’s implementing capacity and the benefi-
ciary countries’ capacity to absorb resources should match
the rhythm and volume of commitments;

(e)

criteria and indicators should be available for all projects and
programmes and monitoring and evaluation should be car-
ried out systematically.

Despite these important recommendations, the evalua-
34.
tion concluded that it was still too early to assess fully the impact
and effectiveness of the Regulation and that a second overall
evaluation would therefore have to be carried out in 2003/2004.
In its communication (1) the Commission agreed with this con-
clusion and accordingly, in its reply of 14 December 2001 (2) the
Council considered that ‘there is no need to alter the content of
the Regulation’.

31.
In order to remedy such situations, socioeconomic and
agricultural censuses were planned in a number of countries. In
practice, however, these suffer from major delays. Furthermore,
once donor support for statistical services came to a halt, the pro-
duction of statistics virtually stopped in most of the countries.

Overall management

Budgetary implementation

The evaluation required by the Council Regulation

32.
Article 32 of Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 stipulates that,
three years after it comes into force, the Commission must submit
to the budgetary authorities an overall evaluation of its food aid
and food security operations, accompanied by suggestions for the
future of the Regulation and, if necessary, proposals for amend-
ments to it.

33.
On the basis of an independent external evaluation report
presented to the Commission in December 2000, the Commis-
sion submitted in September 2001 a synthesis to the budgetary
authorities. The evaluators’ main conclusions were:

(a)

the existence of stand-alone food security programmes is
questionable;

(b) other development programmes should take the dimension
of food security into account and country strategy papers
should cover all instruments;

(c)

foreign currency facilities for the import of foodstuffs have
no function in a liberalised market and are de facto simply
supports to the national budgets;

35.
The commitment appropriations for EU budget headings
under Chapter B7-2 0 specifically dedicated to food aid and food
security fell from 530 million euro for 1997 to 465 million euro
for 2001, i.e. a decline of 12 % within four years (see Table 1). A
detailed breakdown of payments by country and organisation is
presented in Annexes 3 to 5 for each of the programme years 1997
to 2001.

36.
In general, the committed funds for food aid are rapidly
used as the implementation of this type of activity is rather
straightforward. The absorptive capacity for food security has
been much lower, as can be seen from Table 2, which shows the
commitments and cumulative payments made up to 31 Decem-
ber 2001 for the programme years 1997 to 2001 (3).

(1) Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament
and to the Council ‘Evaluation and future orientation of Council
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 on food aid policy and food aid manage-
ment and special operations in support of food security’ (COM(2001)
473 final of 12 September 2001).

(2) Document 15390/01 of the Food Aid Group of the Council: ‘Draft
Council conclusions on the evaluation and future orientation of
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96’.

(3) A programme year is the year for which, through an official letter (see
paragraph 48), a pledge is made to finance a food security programme
for a specific recipient country. The commitments for such a pro-
gramme can be spread over several budget years.

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Commitment appropriations for food aid and food security for the budgetary years 1994 to 2001

Table 1

Food Aid (B7-2 0 0)

Transport (B7-2 0 2)

Total food aid

Food security (B7-2 0 1) (1)

Total B7-2 0

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

151

218

369

220

589

151

218

369

223

592

151

201

352

179

531

151,0

118,0

151,0

118,0

151,0

104,0

269,0

269,0

255,0

151,0

96,1

247,1

261,0

261,0

250,0

215,0

530,0

530,0

505,0

462,1

Amendments and modifications 1997 to 2001

–

+ 53,4

+ 2,2

– 3,7

(Mio EUR)

2001

151,0

98,0

249,0

206,0

455,0

+ 9,7

Final commitment appropriations 1997 to
2001 (2)

530,0

583,4

507,2

458,4

464,7

(1) During the period 1994 to 2001, the content of budget chapter B7-2 0 changed as a result of the introduction of Council Regulation (EC) No 1292/96. In particular in the
years 1994 to 1996, this budget heading contained large amounts for food aid in the form of non-cereals (e.g. oils, milk powder). Therefore only the years 1997 to 2001 can
be compared with each other.

(2) The differences between the annual totals in this table and in Table 2 are due to the fact that the commitments for programme years (Table 2) are spread over several budget

years (Table 1).

Source: General budget of the European Union; Commission’s accounting system Sincom.

Cumulative payments for food aid and food security commitments for each of the programme years 1997 to
2001 (general budget of the EU) (1)

(Situation on 31.12.2001 in mio EUR)

Table 2

Programme year

Data

Food aid

Food security

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

Commitments
Payments made
%

Commitments
Payments made
%

Commitments
Payments made
%

Commitments
Payments made
%

Commitments
Payments made
%

Total — Commitments

Total — Payments made

Total %

339,2
285,0
84,0

300,8
253,3
84,2

243,8
206,4
84,7

223,4
121,3
54,3

175,0
76,4
43,7

1 282,2

942,4

73,5

192,9
150,6
78,1

288,1
211,1
73,3

293,7
149,6
50,9

189,6
54,9
29,0

261,5
28,9
11,1

1 225,8

595,1

48,5

Total

532,1
435,6
81,9

588,9
464,4
78,9

537,5
356,0
66,2

413,0
176,2
42,7

436,5
105,3
24,1

2 508,0

1 537,5

61,3

(1) The differences between the annual totals in this table and in Table 1 are due to the fact that the commitments (contracts/riders) for

programme years are spread over several budget years.

Source: CRIS (Sincom 2).

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The management structures

37.
The Commission has overall responsibility for the imple-
mentation of the food security policy from budget Chapter B7-2 0.
For that purpose a special unit has been created. In the beneficiary
countries the food security operations are implemented and moni-
tored by beneficiary countries’ services, the Commission’s delega-
tions, local food security units (LFSUs) and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs).

COMMISSION

38.
The objective of food security leads to a wide variety of
actions which are interwoven with operations in the field of food
aid, humanitarian aid and long-term development support. To
ensure coherence between food security operations and other aid,
strong coordination with other, relevant Commission’s services is
desirable. This means that the unit responsible for food security
should continuously communicate and coordinate with all geo-
graphical units (Asia, Latin America, central and eastern Europe,
ACP States) within the same Directorate-General, with a number
of other Directorates-General (e.g. Development, External rela-
tions) and with the Commission’s humanitarian aid office. Given
its limited resources, it is very difficult for the specialised unit to
ensure the coherence between the food security policies and the
recipient countries’ other development strategies (see para-
graph 25), a task which is essential as long as various EU develop-
ment programmes are run in parallel.

LFSUS

39.
LFSUs are local technical assistance offices financed by
the Commission, where European and local experts work in order
to assist the recipient country in designing, implementing and
monitoring food security operations. Apart from personal con-
tracts with their staff, LFSUs do not have clear and written man-
dates explaining in detail their tasks and responsibilities for the
management of and reporting on food security operations. There-
fore, in Niger and Yemen, it was not always clear whether and to
what extent the LFSUs or technical assistants, working in the con-
text of food security should assist primarily the delegation or the
beneficiary country’s services.

istrative eligibility of the applicants was centrally examined in
Brussels, causing such long delays that the time available to the
delegations for the technical and financial examination of the pro-
posed operations was far too short. In general, the new procedure
turned out to be complex and time-consuming. While the call for
it was only in
proposals was published in September 2000,
December 2001 that the first contracts could be signed.

RESAL

41.
For a number of different support tasks the Commission
contracted in 1998 a joint venture of seven independent consul-
tancy firms to set up the European Food Security Network (RESAL).

42.
RESAL’s main tasks were to provide assistance in formu-
lating food security strategies and analysing food security situa-
tions, to formulate proposals for food security operations and to
set up a system for collecting and analysing data (contained in
monthly and quarterly reports) and to improve information sys-
tems relating to food security issues (price monitoring, harvest
forecasts, etc). The results of the information system were made
available via the Internet.

In general, RESAL functioned well and it was particularly
43.
strong in supplying ad hoc consultancy support in the form of
studies and contributions to the formulation of food security poli-
cies and strategies requested by both the Commission and the
recipient countries.

Whereas the information network was a good initiative
44.
to put existing information together and to present it in an acces-
sible form to the public, it should be noted that the quality of the
information was only as good as the quality of the sources, which
were not always reliable. Furthermore, the information on RESAL’s
website was not always up to date: in August 2001, for instance,
for half of the countries analysed by the Court, the information,
which should have been provided on a monthly basis, was more
than four months old.

NGOS

40.
A new procedure for the selection of NGOs was intro-
duced in 2000. Despite the Commission’s intention to decentra-
lise the implementation of development aid, the legal and admin-

In the context of the policy of closing its technical assis-
45.
tance offices, the Commission discontinued the contract with
RESAL as of 1 September 2001. Instead, 20 newly recruited
experts with similar tasks and functions as RESAL’s are to be
employed at 15 delegations in priority countries, and a further
five experts at the Commission’s services in Brussels.

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Management information

46.
Although the Commission in Brussels has reliable infor-
mation on the allocation, the commitment and the release of
funds to the food security programmes, it could not provide reli-
able information on the use of funds advanced and on the progress
of the components of the programmes (1). The Commission’s Sin-
com2 accounting system could not identify all food security-
related contracts and payments in respect of such contracts, and
therefore could not give complete and detailed figures thereon.
Although such information was usually available at the level of
the delegations, it was not systematically communicated to the
Commission in Brussels. The Commission’s annual reports to the
budgetary authorities on the implementation of Regulation (EC)
No 1292/96 lack information on the use of counterpart funds.
This runs contrary to Article 31(3) of this Regulation, which
clearly stipulates that the Commission’s annual report on the
implementation of food aid and food security operations must
contain information on operations undertaken with the counter-
part funds generated.

47.
The Commission’s annual reports on the implementation
of actions for food aid and food security can only be used with
the greatest care for analyses such as comparing one year with
another, due to the above problems and due to the fact that the
presentation of the components of the aid changed from year to
year.

Actions

Preparation of the interventions

On the basis of official letters (in effect contracts, signed
48.
by the Commission and the beneficiary country) to which global
annual food security plans are attached, the preparation of the
individual projects and actions can be launched.

(c)

the Council Regulation allows a large variety of actions to be
carried out under food security budget headings, which
requires particular efforts to define the specific content of
the food security programmes with the partners.

As a result, for some of the beneficiary countries no programme
at all was compiled for certain years.

50.
The Regulation stipulates that food security operations
must be embedded in a multiannual plan (2). A multiannual plan
is required to show long-term perspectives as to how to replace
food aid by food security operations, so that a coherent package
of activities can be defined for a number of years. Until recently,
programming has been done on an annual basis. Since 2001 the
Commission has prepared multiannual programmes for a num-
ber of beneficiary countries, for example for Mozambique.

Article 3 of the Council Regulation requires an approach
51.
which ensures a complementarity of actions financed from dif-
ferent sources. In most of the countries visited by the Court, food
security programmes were not well integrated in the mainstream
programmes. The food security heading is considered by some
parties involved to be a welcome additional source of finance. In
the case of Ethiopia, for instance, the budget headings for food
security were used to compensate for the lack of agricultural com-
ponents in the seventh and, particularly, in the eighth EDFs. In a
number of countries, however, attempts have been made to link
certain types of action to the food security budget heading. In
Niger, rural development projects were financed by the EDFs,
whereas the food security budget headings were mainly used to
finance supporting activities and capacity-building (e.g. food secu-
rity and crisis management body, food storage, agricultural cen-
suses). In Madagascar, food security operations financed from the
general budget complement the rural development projects
financed from the seventh and eighth EDFs, and the two different
financial resources are used in a coherent way. This is because
there is only one development strategy in this country which gov-
erns operations on rural development, food security and poverty
alleviation regardless of their source.

49.
This process has generally been cumbersome and lengthy
in most of the recipient countries. This was due, inter alia, to the
following factors:

Identification

(a)

as food security strategy papers do not usually set clear pri-
orities, the whole process of setting priorities is deferred to
the programming phase;

(b)

administrative procedures, both in the Commission and in
the recipient country, are complicated;

52.
The identification of the projects was unstructured in
most of the countries visited by the Court. With the exception of
Bolivia, there was no evidence of structures in place which could
lead to the selection of projects on the basis of clear priorities and
criteria. In Yemen, for instance, the most important criterion was
that the projects should be evenly spread over the country; the
outcome was a dispersion of a wide variety of projects, selected
on an ad hoc basis.

(1) See successive qualifications in the Court’s Statements of Assurance,
culminating in the Annual Report concerning the financial year 1999,
paragraphs 8.11 to 8.13 (OJ C 342, 1.12.2000).

(2) Recitals 13 and 14 of the preamble and Article 3(4).

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The design and planning of food security operations
53.
examined by the Court was hampered by a lack of feasibility stud-
ies. For example, in Yemen, feasibility studies carried out before
the start of an operation were virtually absent. Most of the projects
were implemented without prior justification procedures and
without consulting the local population. In Ethiopia, none of the
projects examined on the spot had been the subject of financial
or economic analysis before implementation. In Madagascar, too,
the viability and sustainability of food security operations was not
sufficiently examined.

Local communities will only feel responsible for a project
59.
if they have been involved from the identification phase through-
out the whole process. Moreover, food security operations will
not be sustainable without functioning local structures in the
communities to support the local population in formulating needs
and implementing and managing projects. In practice, their
involvement in the project cycle was very limited in all countries
visited by the Court with the exception of Bolivia.

54.
Nevertheless, once adopted, many of the projects visited
by the Court were technically well executed and useful for the
population concerned. Exceptions were irrigation projects in
Yemen and Bolivia for which dams and pipelines were either not
completed or not maintained so that irrigation was limited.

60.
In Yemen and Georgia, in particular, there was no evi-
dence that the population had been consulted. Operations are
implemented without assessing the situation of the local popula-
tion or explaining why a given operation should have priority or
why particular target groups have been selected. In Yemen, the
local administrative services had severe problems in convincing
the communities of the usefulness of the proposed operations.

Implementation

Involvement of beneficiaries

55.
A high degree of involvement of the governments of the
recipient countries in designing food security operations is essen-
tial to their ultimate success. In particular, administrative struc-
tures at central and local levels should be in place for ensuring the
sustainability of projects.

In most of the countries visited there is insufficient struc-
61.
tural capacity at the local level to manage and follow up the
projects and support the local population from an administrative
and technical point of view. Although in Bolivia the local munici-
palities function adequately, their coordination ability is weak-
ened by the fact that their key technical staff are frequently
changed after elections for political considerations.

Delays

56.
The involvement of central governments in the project
cycle is generally limited. In some of the countries visited by the
Court, food security activities are left to local bodies in a rather
uncoordinated way (e.g. Yemen, Ethiopia). In other countries, like
Madagascar and Bolivia, specific bodies were created to imple-
ment the programme.

62.
In nearly all recipient countries there were considerable
delays between the financing decision and the start of the imple-
mentation of the programmes and projects. As a result, consider-
able amounts of unspent funds stood idle for several years.

57.
In Niger, a management unit for food aid/food security
actions was created, through which coordination between the
State and donors works well. Nevertheless, the Government’s
commitment to this national food security device remains insuf-
ficient, so that the donors, and not the Government, have taken
the lead.

63.
In general, the delays for the implementation of the first
programmes (for the year 1996) were especially important. This
is partly due to the reasons already mentioned in relation to the
preparation of the interventions (see paragraph 49). The staffing
problems and the short-term effects of the Commission’s reor-
ganisation also explains lengthy delays in payments in, for instance,
Ethiopia, Yemen and Madagascar, which disrupted the smooth
execution of the programmes.

58.
The active participation of the population is at least as
important as the degree of involvement of the central administra-
tion. According to Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 (1), recipients
should become agents of their own development. Therefore they
should actively support the projects if these are to have a chance
to become viable and sustainable.

(1) Article 1(3), fifth indent.

64.
Delays were caused by the recipient countries as well. For
instance, the Governments of Yemen and Niger were not able to
agree on the execution of agricultural censuses, which are vital for
obtaining information on the food security situation. In Ethiopia,
the unclear division of responsibilities between Ministries and
implementing bodies and between the central Government and
the Governments of the regional States also caused delays.

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Budget support

Monitoring

In a number of countries, Community aid is given in the
65.
form of budget support (as provided for in Article 2(5) of the
Council Regulation), subject to effective programming, imple-
mentation and monitoring of the national budget, i.e. regular
supervision and control of public expenditure.

70.
Monitoring should primarily be done by the central or
local administration together with the Commission’s delegation. In
general, the Commission’s central services and delegations are not
heavily involved in the monitoring of projects. In most countries,
the monitoring is carried out by the LFSU.

66.
Usually, the budget support is financed by the counter-
value (in local currency) of foreign currency made available by the
Commission to the recipient countries to finance imports of
foodstuffs for which the recipient countries have to provide evi-
dence. However, in a situation of liberalised imports, as is the case
now in virtually all beneficiary countries, this is an artificial con-
struction for an intervention which is de facto a general foreign
currency facility to support the balance of payments of the coun-
tries concerned.

67.
In most cases of budget support, target areas are defined
e.g. support to the social sector, support to investments or sup-
port to cover recurrent costs. The considerations on the basis of
which one or another approach is chosen are usually not docu-
mented. Furthermore, budget support is given only when certain
conditions are fulfilled. They can relate, amongst others, to macro-
economic factors, to budgetary indicators (e.g. proportion spent
on health or education) or the administrative reforms of govern-
ments’ services. A general criterion should be that budget support
should only be given when effective management and control of
the national budgetary and accounting systems are in place or,
when this is not the case, that at least substantial improvements
are provided for (1).

68.
Budget support was provided to Georgia, Madagascar,
Niger and Yemen, although the budgetary and accounting sys-
tems were not adequate. Payments were suspended because the
countries did not fulfil the conditions in the case of Georgia (macro-
economic conditions) and Madagascar (reform of its public
administration).

71.
In Georgia, the Government shows little interest in moni-
toring, with the exception of projects managed by the Ministry of
Health, which is responsible for family allowances, for which the
monitoring is tight and effective. In Yemen, no checks were car-
ried out at all by the national administration on food security
operations.

72.
Despite the fact that the LFSU’s monitoring was ham-
pered by the dispersion and remoteness of projects in Ethiopia,
those reports which were provided by the LFSU generally gave a
clear and comprehensive diagnosis of the implementation status
of the projects they refer to.

Evaluation and audits

73.
To establish whether the objectives laid down during the
appraisal phase have been achieved, the Commission should
undertake regular evaluations of food security operations. This is
not sufficiently done, and, with the exception of Ethiopia, only
very few independent evaluations have been carried out. In any
case, to be able to properly assess the impact and the efficiency of
food security operations, verifiable performance indicators for all
projects and programmes are necessary. With the exception of
Bolivia, evidence of such indicators could not be found in any of
the countries examined by the Court.

74.
In most of the official letters or the associated Memo-
randa of Understanding it was stated that financial audits of the
programmes had to be carried out. Audits covering the whole
programme, or part of the programme in the cases of so-called
‘mid-term reviews’, started to be carried out in 2001 only.

69.
Although the decisions to suspend the payments were
entirely justified by the non-fulfilment of conditions, it led to
severe interruptions of the implementation of food security pro-
grammes, for instance in the social sector where financing from
the national budget depended on EU funding. Budget support
which is dependent on macroeconomic factors can therefore eas-
ily become incompatible with food security operations specifi-
cally aimed at improving the food security situation at local level.

75.
The fact that the audits are carried out a number of years
after the start of the programmes means that it is often difficult
to trace supporting documents or to obtain explanations about
the considerations justifying transactions. Also, in such a situa-
tion weaknesses in the system of internal control, at least for the
programme in question, can no longer be corrected and for other
on-going programmes can only be redressed at a very late stage.

(1) Special Report No 5/2001, on counterpart funds from structural
adjustment support earmarked for budget aid (seventh and eighth
EDFs) (OJ C 257, 14.9.2001) and Special Report No 1/2002 concern-
ing macrofinancial assistance (MFA) to third countries and structural
adjustment facilities (SAI) in the Mediterranean countries (OJ C 121,
23.5.2002).

76.
The Commission’s central services do not have a com-
plete or up-to-date picture of the audits carried out, for which the
initiatives are taken by the delegations, because the delegations do
not systematically inform the central services about the planned
and executed audits.

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The adequacy of audits and the content of audit reports
77.
were often not adequately assessed. Consequently, appropriate
action was not always taken when audits were professionally
inadequate or when the audit reports described shortcomings, for
instance in the internal control system for payments.

Also, the main recommendations of the conclusions of
82.
19 December 2001 of the Council on Regulation (EC) No 1292/
96 (4) did not pick up on the recommendation of the Commis-
sion’s communication (5) that the role of the FSFAC be strength-
ened through a greater focus on strategic and sectoral issues.

Donor coordination

Coordination at central level

The information received from the Commission by the
83.
representatives of the Member States in the FSFAC is not system-
atically forwarded to their Embassies on the spot: the EU Ambas-
sadors in Georgia, for example, complained about the fact that
they did not receive any feed-back on Community food security
policies from the Member States’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs or
from their Ministries for Development Cooperation.

78.
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 stipulates that the Commu-
nity and its Member States shall closely coordinate their develop-
ment cooperation policies as regards food aid and food security
operations, and that provision should be made for close coopera-
tion between the Member States and the Commission within the
Food Security and Food Aid Committee of the Council (FSFAC) (1).

Coordination at local level

79.
It also states, in Article 20, that the Member States and
the Commission shall afford each other all necessary assistance
and exchange all relevant information regarding the implementa-
tion of food aid and food security operations. More specifically, it
stipulates, in Article 28, that Member States shall notify the Com-
mission of their national food aid and food security operations,
and that coordination and cooperation between the Community
and the Member States shall be the subject of a regular exchange
of information within the FSFAC. Furthermore, according to
Article 30, Member States and the Commission shall notify each
other of the results of evaluation work and of analyses or studies
and shall endeavour to carry out joint evaluation exercises.

In reality, however, these provisions of the Regulation are
80.
not adequately applied. Member States have not notified the
Commission of their bilateral food aid and food security opera-
tions. The provision of information on food security operations
is a one-way process. The Commission informs the Member States
but not the other way around, as the Court has pointed out on
several occasions concerning other programmes (2).

84.
At local level, there were regular meetings between the
representatives of the Member States and the Commission’s del-
egations. In most of the countries visited, the coordination con-
sisted of an exchange of information only, but in Madagascar, in
particular, there was intense cooperation with the other donors,
leading to a joint donors’ database containing all the details of the
projects financed by donors in the country. In Niger, the coord-
ination between donors participating in the coordination body
for the prevention and management of food crises was also tight.

85.
With the exception of Madagascar and Niger, coordin-
ation with other multilateral donors (World Bank (WB), Inter-
national Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations Development Pro-
gramme (UNDP), FAO) is marginal, although in many countries,
WB and IMF currently help the government to prepare a strategy
paper on national poverty alleviation policy. As poverty allevi-
ation and food security are very closely connected, there should
be close coordination on this subject between the government,
the Community and WB/IMF in order to prevent contradictions.

81.
The Belgian Presidency of the FSFAC in September 2001
unilaterally presented the Belgian national food aid and food secu-
rity policy and proposed that Member States should in turn
present their food security policies within the FSFAC (3). This ini-
tiative failed, however, to draw a response from the other Member
States.

86.
Albeit of insufficient quality, information systems were
found in most of the countries visited, dealing with aspects of
food security, in the form of information on agricultural produc-
tion, market information systems and early warning systems.
These systems were operated partly by government services, partly
by donors. This has led to a dispersion of information as well as
to duplication of information systems, which could be avoided by
better coordination.

(1) Recitals 3 and 23 of the preamble.
(2) Special Report No 7/98 on South Africa (OJ C 241, 31.7.1998), para-
graphs 93 to 97; Special Report No 4/2000 on rehabilitation (OJ C 113,
19.4.2000), paragraphs 37 to 41; Special Report No 19/2000 on Pal-
estine (OJ C 32, 31.1.2001), paragraphs 84 to 88.
‘Non-paper’ document 6/01 (ALIM) of 6 September 2001.

(3)

(4) Council document 15390/01 (ALIM) of 17 December 2001.
(5) Recommendation No 9 of the communication from the Commission
to the European Parliament and to the Council (COM(2001) 473 final
of 12 September 2001, p. 5).

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The lack of donor coordination blocks the elaboration of
87.
single, overall, country strategies, which should be followed by all
donors. In the view of a number of important donors, the recipi-
ent country should then take care of the coordination between
the different donors. However, as long as a country is not capable
of doing so, coordination between donors on their own initiative
is vital.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The policy and Regulation (EC) No 1292/96

88.
Specific food security strategies, programmes and action
plans have been developed in line with Regulation (EC) No 1292/
96. They are additional to poverty alleviation strategies, agricul-
tural strategies, country strategy papers, national indicative pro-
grammes and a variety of development plans of other donors. In
most of these strategy papers the (implicit or explicit) ultimate
objectives are the same: poverty alleviation, food security, improve-
ment of living conditions.

Food security is not an instrument, and actions under-
89.
taken with the aim to improve food security do not have specific
‘food security’ characteristics. Rather, they are similar or identical
to actions undertaken in the context of any development pro-
gramme. Nevertheless, food security programmes are executed as
development programmes separately from the mainstream devel-
opment programmes. The result is that a substantial coordination
effort is required by the various Commission services and other
parties to ensure coherence between the different programmes. In
practice, such coordination could not be achieved due to limited
resources in the specialised unit for food security interventions.

The Commission should increase efforts with multilateral and
bilateral donors, including EU Member States, to compile com-
mon country strategy papers for the developing countries, which
should explicitly include the concept of food security.

91.
When the present food security objectives are incorpo-
rated into mainstream development programmes, the need for a
specific Regulation covering interventions on food security is no
longer apparent. Therefore, consideration should be given, prob-
ably in the context of the new evaluation of food security
announced for 2004, to discontinuing Regulation (EC) No 1292/
96 in its present form. The activities in support of food security
which are presently financed under Regulation (EC) No 1292/96
could then be covered by the Regulations regarding the geographi-
cal areas Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean countries. In
this scenario, a solution may have to be found for the ACP States,
which would risk being excluded from the resources financed
from the general budget which currently complement the alloca-
tions which they receive from the EDFs. Whatever the solution
chosen, the coherence between the funding from the budget and
the ACP States’ indicative programmes should be ensured.

92.
Food aid provided under Regulation (EC) No 1292/96
has a strong relief, and therefore humanitarian, component in
many cases. Therefore, all food aid in kind could be integrated
into the Regulation on humanitarian aid, so that one single Regu-
lation would cover humanitarian aid and food aid, with distinct
procedures where necessary.

93.
The appropriations for food aid and humanitarian aid
could be grouped together under one budget heading, whereas
the amounts for food security could be included in the general
budget headings for the support by the development programmes
of the beneficiary countries in each of the geographic regions.

Recommendation 1

Food security programmes

90.

The objective of food security should be followed up by:

(a)

screening proposed operations in order to make sure that
their impact on food security has been considered;

(b) monitoring food security in the recipient countries and ana-

lysing the causes of food insecurity;

(c)

reporting on food security and recommending possible
actions to improve it.

94.
Food security programmes, prepared on an annual basis,
usually take a number of years before they can be completed. Due
to the delays in the annual programming in general and the con-
sequent delays in releasing funds, the desirable continuous financ-
ing cannot always be ensured.

Recommendation 2

95.
Programmes should be multiannual and based on bene-
ficiary countries’ overall development strategies. They should be
realistic in that they should reflect beneficiary countries’ absorp-
tion capacity as well as the Commission’s capacity to manage and
monitor the programme.

C 93/16

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Official Journal of the European Union

17.4.2003

Baseline data

Recommendation 4

96.
In general, the information available on the food security
situation is outdated, incomplete and unreliable. Donors have
given assistance in the past to improve the countries’ capacity in
statistical matters. However, the results generally evaporated when
the beneficiary countries were required to finance the statistical
activities out of their own resources.

100.
The Commission should modify its accounting and man-
agement information systems so that complete and accurate fig-
ures on the use of funds can be compiled. Furthermore, there
should be a regular exchange of information between the Com-
mission’s central services and its delegations. Even in a decentra-
lised situation, the central services should have access to basic
information to be able to fulfil their supervisory function.

Recommendation 3

Sustainability

The Commission, together with other donors, should give
97.
priority to supporting the development of systems aimed at pro-
viding reliable information on socioeconomic household situ-
ations (including aspects of poverty and food security).

98.
In this context, the Commission, in cooperation with the
other donors, should develop indicators which can be used to
measure whether food security is improving.

Management information in central services

99.
The Commission’s accounting system could not identify
all relevant information on the financial situation and the progress
of the implementation of food security actions. To a great extent
this information is available at the level of the delegations but this
was not systematically communicated to the Commission in Brus-
sels.

101.
The sustainability of actions is not ensured when the
national administrative infrastructure at central and local levels is
inadequate. In most of the countries visited by the Court, the
capacity or the motivation of the central services were insufficient
to manage development programmes effectively. At local level,
hardly any administrative structures exist. This is a general prob-
lem, which has been commented upon regularly by the Court.

Recommendation 5

To increase the current weak absorptive capacities and
102.
to enhance ownership of food security projects in the recipient
countries, the Commission should continue to focus on capacity-
building and institutional support. Particular attention should be
given to the processes of identifying, planning and monitoring
actions. The local population should be actively involved in all
phases of the projects. The national governments should be
encouraged to give priority to the development of local structures
in which, in the interim, NGOs could play an important role.

This report was adopted by the Court of Auditors in Luxembourg at its meeting of 13 February 2003.

For the Court of Auditors

Juan Manuel FABRA VALLÉS

President

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 93/17

THE FOOD SECURITY SITUATION IN THE SIX COUNTRIES VISITED BY THE COURT

ANNEX 1

1.

The food security situation in the countries visited by the Court (1) is presented below.

In Georgia, Bolivia and Madagascar, the overall availability of food appears to be sufficient, i.e. there is no food deficit
2.
in the country as a whole. There is, however, a problem of access for the poorest layers of the population due to severe lack
of purchasing power.

In Ethiopia, food insecurity is linked to structural factors, and 49 % of the population, or 28,4 million people, are
3.
undernourished. The main factors are the lack of purchasing power and the problem of physical access to food: the World
Development Report 1999/2000 indicates that 89 % of the population falls below the USD 2 per day poverty line.

4.
Yemen is structurally unable to produce more than about 30 % of the foodstuffs needed to feed the population, the
shortage being mainly covered by imports. Given the extremely low purchasing power of rural populations, there are struc-
tural food shortages in rural areas.

The food security situation in Niger is extremely fragile because of climate conditions, as a result of which years of

5.
serious food shortages occur regularly.

The following Table shows the number of undernourished and their share of the total population for the six countries

6.
visited:

Undernourishment in the six countries visited

Country

Undernourished
in %

Undernourished
in million

Ethiopia

Niger

Madagascar

Yemen

Bolivia

Georgia

Total of the six countries visited

49

46

40

35

23

23

43

Source: FAO, Rome: Assessment of the world food security situation (published 1.6.2001).

28,4

4,5

5,8

5,7

1,8

1,2

47,4

(1) Bolivia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Madagascar, Niger and Yemen.

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Official Journal of the European Union

17.4.2003

ANNEX 2

DIVERSITY OF FOOD SECURITY ACTIONS

— Support of early warning systems

— Building or upgrading storage facilities

— Building greenhouses

— Production or supply of seeds, establishment of grain or seed banks

— Supply of agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides, tools and equipment

— Supply of small-scale agricultural technologies

— Support for the development of aquaculture

— Supply of fishing tools and boats

— Restocking activities

— Food for work, cash for work, employment generation schemes

— Diversification of rural incomes

— Development of crop production, horticulture and fruit trees cultivation

— Development of livestock production (e.g. cattle breeding, milk and cheese production) and poultry breeding

— Veterinary equipment and support for veterinary clinics, supply of veterinary drugs

— Support for transport, distribution and marketing of agricultural products

— Rural development micro-projects

— Rural micro-credit schemes for agriculture, cattle breeding, handicraft

— Rural water supply schemes

— Construction of small dams

— Irrigation schemes

— River diversion

— Protection of the banks of rivers or wadis

— Soil conservation

— Rural access roads (feeder roads)

— Village infrastructure

— Reforestation

— Support for producers’ associations

— Support for women’s organisations

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Official Journal of the European Union

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— Technical assistance and training in agricultural techniques, finance and management

— Institutional-capacity-building for ministries and other government bodies, municipalities and local communities in

charge of food security operations

— Information and training in food and health issues, promotion of diet diversification

— Campaigns on hygiene and sanitation

— Support for health security

— Support for rural schools and nurseries

— Support for social safety nets

— Foreign currency facilities to finance imports of foodstuffs

Source: European Court of Auditors.

C 93/20

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Official Journal of the European Union

17.4.2003

Cumulative payments for food aid and food security on 31.12.2001(general budget of the European Union) for each of the programme
years 1997 to 2001

(Mio EUR)

ANNEX 3

Groups

Recipients

Programme year

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

Ethiopia
North Korea
Bangladesh
Malawi
Bolivia
Kyrgyzstan
Armenia
Mozambique
Georgia
Azerbaijan
South Korea
Peru
Nicaragua
Honduras
Niger
Montenegro
Yemen
Madagascar
Eritrea
Cape Verde
Albania
Haiti
Kosovo
Liberia
Angola
Mauritania
Rwanda
Tanzania
Burkina Faso
Sudan
Tajikistan
Jordan
Sierra Leone
Laos
Palestine
Somalia
Swaziland
Kenya
Zambia
Mali
Senegal
Ivory Coast
Pakistan
Cuba
Cambodia
DR Congo
SADC (4)
Guatemala
Regional Sahel
Thailand

WFP (5)
UNRWA (2)
NGOs
ICRC (3)
FAO

Countries

Total countries

Organisations

Total organisations

Miscellaneous (1)

Grand total

37,4
0,6
15,5
11,1
21,1
8,5
6,0
15,7
16,0
15,4
25,2
15,3
0,8
3,4
6,2

10,2
1,2
0,1
8,1
10,3
4,2

5,9
0,1
5,6
1,6

0,1
1,6
1,1

0,7

0,2

0,9
0,1
0,2
0,5
1,0

0,4

0,1

252,4

93,5
11,7
59,8
6,4

171,4

12,1

435,9

27,3
32,0
23,9
18,6
22,5
8,3
11,7
2,4
1,4
13,6

2,2
15,7
8,5
6,6

5,1
13,7

5,0
0,2
4,9

2,4
7,8
0,7
0,4
5,2
2,4
0,6
0,9
2,0
1,1
1,2
1,2

1,3
0,3
1,0

0,5

0,2
0,6
0,5

0,3

0,0

254,2

124,8
11,5
47,4
9,3
2,0

195,0

15,2

464,4

14,4
25,8
8,3
21,3

8,0
9,5
6,4
12,0

6,0
0,2
4,6

10,2

0,2
1,0
9,5

3,4

0,1

0,9

0,6
1,4

0,8

0,3

144,9

89,8
13,1
77,5

7,8

188,2

22,9

356,0

9,9
9,8
4,3

0,1
9,5
5,0
5,8

0,1

0,1
3,0
5,1

2,9

0,2

0,7

0,5

57,0

70,4
10,6
32,0

113,0

6,3

176,3

(1) Miscellaneous mainly concerns technical assistance not focused on specific countries, e.g. seminars.
(2) UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
(3) International Committee of the Red Cross.
(4) Southern African Development Community.
(5) World Food Programme of the United Nations.
Source: CRIS (Sincom 2).

Total

89,0
68,2
52,0
51,0
43,7
34,3
32,2
30,3
29,4
29,0
25,2
23,6
16,7
16,6
15,8
15,3
15,3
14,9
13,4
13,1
10,7
10,2
9,5
8,3
7,9
6,5
5,4
5,2
3,0
2,2
2,0
2,0
2,0
1,9
1,8
1,6
1,3
1,2
1,1
1,0
1,0
1,0
0,7
0,6
0,6
0,5
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,0

719,4

427,9
58,8
244,6
15,7
9,8

756,8

61,6

46,8 %

49,2 %

4,0 %

10,4

0,1

0,4

10,9

49,4
11,9
27,9

89,2

5,1

105,2

1 537,8

100,0 %

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 93/21

Cumulative payments for food security on 31.12.2001 (general budget of the European Union) for each of the programme years 1997 to
2001

ANNEX 4

Programme year

(Mio EUR)

Groups

Recipients

1997

1998

Malawi
Bolivia
Armenia
Kyrgyzstan
Ethiopia
North Korea
Peru
Azerbaijan
Mozambique
Honduras
Nicaragua
Montenegro
Georgia
Cape Verde
Madagascar
Bangladesh
Albania
Niger
Eritrea
Haiti
Yemen
Liberia
Mauritania
Tanzania
Rwanda
Angola
Burkina Faso
Sudan
Tajikistan
Jordan
Sierra Leone
Laos
Palestine
Somalia
Swaziland
Kenya
Zambia
Mali
Senegal
Ivory Coast
Pakistan
Cuba
Cambodia
DR Congo
South Korea
SADC (4)
Guatemala
Regional Sahel

UNRWA (2)
NGOs
FAO
ICRC (3)

Countries

Total countries

Organisations

Total organisations

Miscellaneous (1)

Grand total

11,1
21,1
5,5
0,5
8,8
0,6
15,3
9,2
5,7
3,4
0,8

8,1
1,2
3,6
10,3
1,6
0,1
4,2
3,4
5,9
5,6

1,6
0,1
0,1
1,6
1,1

0,7

0,2

0,9
0,1
0,2
0,5
1,0

0,4

0,5

0,1

11,3
22,5
11,7
8,3
14,9
8,8
2,2
13,5
2,3
8,5
15,3

1,4
5,0
10,1
6,9
0,2
6,0

4,9
5,1
2,2
0,7
5,2
0,1
4,0
1,6
0,6
0,9
2,0
1,1
1,2
1,2

1,3
0,3
1,0

0,5

0,2
0,6
0,5

0,3

135,1

184,4

6,8
5,1

0,1

12,0

3,6

150,7

6,8
12,0
2,0
1,2

22,0

5,0

211,4

1999

21,3

9,5
8,0
1,5
6,6
6,0

6,4
4,6

10,2
12,0

0,4
0,2

1,0

3,4

0,1

0,9

0,6
1,4

0,8

0,3

95,2

7,3
19,6
7,8

34,7

19,6

149,5

2000

2001

0,1
5,0
9,5
0,2
8,5
0,1

5,8
0,1

5,1

3,0

0,2

0,7

0,5

38,8

7,8
2,3

10,1

6,0

54,9

10,4
0,1

0,4

10,9

9,5
3,5

13,0

5,0

28,9

Total

43,7
43,7
31,7
26,3
25,4
24,5
23,6
22,7
20,2
16,6
16,1
15,3
13,4
13,1
11,3
10,9
10,7
10,6
10,5
10,2
8,5
8,1
6,5
5,2
5,1
4,1
2,2
2,2
2,0
2,0
2,0
1,9
1,8
1,6
1,3
1,2
1,1
1,0
1,0
1,0
0,7
0,6
0,6
0,5
0,5
0,5
0,4
0,3

464,4

78,0 %

38,2
42,5
9,8
1,3

91,8

39,2

15,4 %

6,6 %

595,4

100,0 %

(1) Miscellaneous mainly concerns technical assistance not focused on specific countries, e.g. seminars.
(2) UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
(3) International Committee of the Red Cross.
(4) Southern African Development Community.
Source: CRIS (Sincom 2).

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Official Journal of the European Union

17.4.2003

Cumulative payments for food aid on 31.12.2001 (general budget of the European Union) for each of the programme years 1997 to 2001

(Mio EUR)

ANNEX 5

Groups

Recipients

Ethiopia
North Korea
Bangladesh
South Korea
Georgia
Mozambique
Kosovo
Kyrgyzstan
Malawi
Yemen
Azerbaijan
Niger
Angola
Madagascar
Eritrea
Burkina Faso
Nicaragua
Armenia
Rwanda
Liberia
Honduras
Haiti
Thailand
Somalia

WFP (4)
UNRWA (2)
ICRC (3)
NGOs

Countries

Total countries

Organisations

Total organisations

Miscellaneous (1)

Grand total

Programme year

1998

1999

2000

2001

12,4
23,2
17,0

0,1

7,3

0,1
0,7
3,8
3,6

0,8
0,3

0,3
0,2
0,1
0,1

70,0

124,8
4,7
8,1
35,5

173,1

10,3

253,4

12,9
19,2
7,8

9,5

0,2

49,6

89,8
5,8

57,9

153,5

3,3

206,4

9,7
1,2
4,3

2,9

18,1

70,4
2,8

29,8

103,0

0,3

121,4

0,0

49,4
2,4

24,4

76,2

0,2

76,4

1997

28,5

12,0
24,7
16,0
10,0

8,0

6,8
6,1
4,5

0,5

117,1

93,5
4,9
6,2
54,7

159,3

8,5

284,9

Total

63,5
43,6
41,1
24,7
16,0
10,1
9,5
8,0
7,3
6,8
6,2
5,2
3,8
3,6
2,9
0,8
0,5
0,5
0,3
0,2
0,1
0,1
0,0
0,0

254,8

427,9
20,6
14,3
202,3

665,1

22,6

942,5

27,0 %

70,6 %

2,4 %

100,0 %

(1) Miscellaneous mainly concerns technical assistance not focused on specific countries, e.g. seminars.
(2) UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
(3) International Committee of the Red Cross.
(4) World food programme of the United Nations.
Source: CRIS (Sincom 2).

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Official Journal of the European Union

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ANNEX 6

Summary of total payments for programme years 1997 to 2001 on 31.12.2001

Food aid

Food security

Total (1)

Food aid in %

(Mio EUR)

Countries visited
Ethiopia
Bolivia
Georgia
Niger
Yemen
Madagascar

All other countries

Organisations

Miscellaneous

Total

(1) Differences due to rounding.

63,5
–
16,0
5,2
6,8
3,6

159,7

665,1

22,6

942,5

25,4
43,7
13,4
10,6
8,5
11,3

351,5

91,8

39,2

595,4

89,0
43,7
29,4
15,8
15,3
14,9

511,3

756,8

61,6

1 537,8

71,3
0,0
54,4
32,9
44,4
24,2

31,2

87,9

36,7

61,3

C 93/24

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Official Journal of the European Union

17.4.2003

THE COMMISSION’S REPLIES

SUMMARY

Particular efforts have been made by delegations with a view to
strengthening local coordination with Member States, major
donors and UN organisations.

II.
The Commission initiated a number of decisive policy
changes, which began in the mid-1980s, to move away from
foodstuff disposal to supporting food security policies and strate-
gies.

XII.

The Commission put forward a communication in 2001
IV.
which provides an improved framework for the integration of
food security issues into overall poverty reduction and develop-
ment strategies. Moreover, the Commission has sought to ensure
a better linkage between relief, rehabilitation and development
aid.

In the latest programming exercise, food security issues
V.
have been taken into account much more systematically by recipi-
ent countries as part of their overall poverty reduction and devel-
opment strategies.

VI.
The Commission has made efforts to assist developing
countries in building capacity and establishing the necessary sys-
tems.

VII.

A new evaluation is planned for 2004.

VIII.
The Commission’s structure and range of instruments
are to be improved in terms of programming, appraisal and
implementation of food security operations of a highly complex
nature. This will be the subject of the evaluation in 2004. Never-
theless, information on needs, problems and the state of imple-
mentation is received regularly through reporting, reviews, evalu-
ations and missions.

(a) and (b) The Commission’s position is as

stated in

COM(2001)473:

— the Commission will look in depth at the broader
conceptual and strategic development frame-
work in which the Commission’s support to
food aid and food security is provided and
should also address the issue of policy coher-
ence,

— it will in particular consider possible options to
integrate/merge fully both the food security
objective and the instrument into the Commis-
sion’s overall development device.

Food security and food aid support emphasise a
partnership approach and are increasingly designed
in the context of nationally owned strategies for pov-
erty reduction.

There is a clear trend towards multiannual pro-
grammes.

Ongoing efforts take account of the Court’s sugges-
tions.

This is ongoing.

The Commission is doing it.

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

IX.
The central institutions in the beneficiary countries are
often very fragile and their capacity for formal intervention is lim-
ited. Nevertheless, the Court has found that many of the projects
were technically well executed and useful for the population con-
cerned.

INTRODUCTION

Mid-term and final evaluations and audits are now carried

X.
out on a regular basis.

XI.

The Commission’s position is as stated in COM(2001) 473:

close coordination at all stages of the programming and project
cycle with EU Member States and other major donors will ensure
complementarity.

3 to 9.
For more than a quarter of a century, support to boost
agricultural output and massive food aid were the major instru-
ments of the North to assist developing countries in their struggle
to deal with food shortages and to achieve food self-sufficiency.
Against this background, the Commission, along with other major
donors, initiated a number of decisive policy changes, starting in
the mid-1980s with a move away from foodstuff disposal to sup-
porting food security policies and strategies. The reform process
was completed in 1996 with the adoption of Council Regulation
(EC) No 1292/96.

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An external evaluation of the implementation of the Regulation
was made in 2000. As a result, the Commission prepared a com-
munication (to be submitted to the European Parliament and to
the Council) to define more clearly the role of the Regulation and
the specific objectives and applications of its various instruments.
Maintaining the Regulation was justified on the basis of:

— the need for a specific development instrument to support

the Community’s efforts to address:

— structural food insecurity as a first step in long-term

poverty reduction in some countries,

— critical food supply-related situations at national and

regional levels, and

— specific nutritional problems,

— the need to bridge the gap between relief, rehabilitation and

development,

bridge between humanitarian aid and the mainstream develop-
ment instruments (EDF, ALA, MEDA and others). It is in this
capacity, as a linking instrument, that Regulation (EC) No 1292/
96 has an effective impact on food security.

20.
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 is not meant to be used as a
mainstream development instrument. However, the Commission
acknowledges that considerable efforts are still required to avoid
duplication between the Commission’s mainstream development
instruments (EDF, ALA, MEDA and others) and the Regulation.

One means of ensuring that Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 is used
strictly for its intended purpose is to choose priority countries
highly vulnerable to food security risks and crises. Moreover, the
introduction of national development strategies and Commission
country strategy papers have provided new tools to integrate in a
coherent manner all development assistance into a single strategic
framework. This has been the case, for example, in Mozambique,
Bolivia and recently in Ethiopia.

— Community commitments to international agreements and
initiatives (international development targets

multilateral
(IDTs) and the Food Aid Convention).

The Commission recognises that, unfortunately, food security
objectives, often declared a priority in many developing countries’
policies, are not always put at the forefront of national develop-
ment strategies.

7.
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 also encourages the integra-
tion of food security into national development policies and pov-
erty reduction strategies.

21.
Although food security objectives might be declared a
priority in many developing countries, too often Governments do
not put poverty reduction, food security and rural development
concerns at the forefront of their national development strategies.

OBSERVATIONS

17.
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 enabled food aid to be placed
in a medium-term post-crisis concept that precedes a long-term
food security development policy using a multiannual approach.
In this sense, food aid and the food security measures that replace
it are an effective link between crisis and development.

18.
The 1996 Regulation (Article 1 of Chapter 1) and com-
munication COM(2001) 473 show that this instrument is designed
to respond as well to ‘situations of food insecurity caused by seri-
ous food shortages or food crises’. These operations are short
term.

Food security cannot be defined along the lines of spe-
19.
cific sectors or activities given that it is, above all, an objective
which cuts across the whole spectrum of development sectors.
The Commission therefore considers that Regulation (EC)
No 1292/96 has a specific role as an instrument for linking emer-
gency, rehabilitation and development or, in other words, as a

In most of the strategy papers of beneficiary countries, the budget
heading is used with varying success to help the governments
concerned to produce a food security strategy and incorporate it
into general poverty reduction policy. This was the case in some
of the countries visited by the Court, e.g. Niger, Georgia, Ethiopia
and Yemen where food security has become a priority.

The Commission not only meets the requirements of the
22.
1996 Regulation, it encourages and assists the beneficiary govern-
ments in including food security in their poverty reduction strat-
egy papers.

25.
The Commission would point out that, since the visit by
the Court of Auditors and pursuant to paragraph 20, Ethiopia,
Niger, and soon Georgia, will be incorporating the elements of
food security policy into their poverty reduction strategy papers.
Including food security in the strategy papers (Niger, Ethiopia and
Georgia) was carried out at the initiative of the Commission and
on the basis of closer dialogue with the governments. The Com-
mission also finances major programmes (preparing for a land

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17.4.2003

registry, allotting of land titles, etc.) in the new independent States
and Honduras. As to gender issues, they have not received suf-
ficient attention in past operations, an issue raised by the external
evaluation (2000). The programming guidelines for the food
security budget heading for 2002 and for 2003/04 therefore
highlight the need to give due attention to cross-cutting issues,
and in particular, gender. For example, in Bangladesh there are
specific income-generation projects for women.

ing countries. In September 2002 PARIS21 launched a measure
aimed at improving agricultural and rural statistics in 10 African
countries as part of the fight against poverty and food insecurity.

(c) The Commission considers it is necessary to have an up-to-
date agricultural census; in Yemen, the current census is
financed by the food security programme.

26.
In view of the inadequacies of the food-security strategy
in Ethiopia, the Commission stepped up its dialogue with the
Government and defined its intervention priorities, addressing
the structural causes of food insecurity (food security programme
approved in August 2002). The current crisis, however, could
defer implementation of that strategy.

The national food security papers for Georgia and the
27.
Yemen fix certain priorities, in particular as regards the setting-up
of information systems and social security programmes. None-
theless, the Commission is aware that it is still necessary to target
priorities.

In Niger, the food security plan is an operational strategy.
28.
It is therefore normal that it results in an action plan. It has, how-
ever, served as a basis for national poverty reduction and rural
development strategies.

29 to 31.
Recognising the importance of poverty and vulner-
ability mapping, statistical and baseline data and information sys-
tems (early warning, market information), the Commission has
put a lot of effort over recent years into assisting developing
countries to build capacity and establish the necessary systems.
There are, however, many countries in crisis and disarray in which
donors have to improvise.

in

its

While

the Commission

34.
communication
COM(2001) 473 and the Council in its conclusions 15390/01
considered that it was not the right time to alter the content of
Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 (before a new and more in-depth
evaluation), COM(2001) 473 took on board most of the recom-
mendations put forward by the 2000/01 evaluation.

As pointed out in its reply to paragraphs 3 to 9, the Commission
confirmed the specific role of Regulation (EC) No 1292/96.

A second evaluation of the implementation of Regulation (EC)
No 1292/96 on food aid policy and food aid management and
special operations to support food security as a whole will be car-
ried out in 2004. This evaluation will look in depth at the broader
conceptual and strategic development framework in which the
Commission’s support to food aid and food security is provided
and will also address the issue of policy coherence. It will in par-
ticular consider possible options to integrate/merge fully both the
food security objective and the instrument into the Commission’s
overall development device. It will also look at possible options
to define more clearly the division of responsibilities between
DEV/EuropeAid Cooperation Office and ECHO with regard to
programming, targeting and handling of food aid in kind.

39.
The tasks of the local technical assistants was clarified in
the context of the devolution of the food security financial instru-
ment: food security experts have since 2002 been part of the
technical ministries or the delegations.

The Commission also believes that benchmark studies undertaken
at the appraisal and planning stage and enhanced monitoring and
evaluation systems (using a limited number of indicators) would
considerably improve impact assessment, although in some coun-
tries such as Bolivia the vulnerable regions are mapped.

40.
As part of the devolution of food security support mea-
sures, the call for proposals from NGOs will be effective in all del-
egations at the start of 2004. The call for proposals will thus be
managed directly by the delegations, procedures will be simpli-
fied and operations speeded up.

30.
In general, statistics on the financial position of house-
holds do exist, but they are scarce, often out-of-date and lack con-
sistency. The PARIS21 project (partnership in statistics for devel-
opment in the 21st century), in which the Commission is involved
via Eurostat, is aimed at improving statistical capacity in develop-

44.
The RESAL site was managed by an NGO under a service
contract that ended in August 2001. Owing to the interest in the
site, the Commission decided to reintroduce it and add it to the
range of its websites; it will be updated from 2003.

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The Commission recognises that the central Sincom2
46.
system does not yet allow a distinction to be made between
advance payments and those relating to work which has been
completed. The Commission is taking action to address this under
Article 81 of the Financial Regulation and Article 102 of the
Implementing Rules applicable from 1 January 2003. Moreover,
this subject is also included in the Commission communication
of 17 December 2002 on modernising the accounting system.

In 2003, the CRIS system will allow the Commission to monitor
the progress of food security programmes in beneficiary coun-
tries.

is currently being redefined in order to identify the geographical
areas more accurately (over four to six administrative depart-
ments) and the target populations (including women).

There are generally no specific structures for identifying and
assessing projects and programmes. The Commission normally
relies on existing government structures and institutions (rein-
forced by technical assistance). It is therefore more a question of
lack of capacity than non-existent structures. The Commission’s
programming guidelines, based on COM(2001) 473, provide solid
guidance for the project selection and appraisal process.

The database will show the current status of programmes (com-
mitments, contracts, payments, etc.).

53.
In Yemen, feasibility studies not carried out by the Gov-
ernment were carried out for three projects. Since June 2002, an
expert has been drawing up an identification and feasibility study
before any action is taken.

49.
Apart from the Court’s comments, delays in implementa-
tion, in particular as regards budgetary support, are due essen-
tially to the failure of governments to fulfil conditions relating to
political and institutional reforms.

The Commission is currently focusing in Yemen on strengthen-
ing participation by the local populations.

On a proposal from the Commission (communication
50.
COM(2001) 473), multiannual programming is now the rule. It
should be noted, however, that multiannual food security pro-
grammes have been defined since 1996: proposal for financing,
charged to the budget over two or three consecutive years. How-
ever, where crises arise and the situation is fragile and volatile
(Palestine, North Korea), flexible annual programming can be a
relative advantage in order to achieve tangible results.

51.
Generally speaking, the complementarity of Community
measures is still a cornerstone of actual implementation, although
it depends on the environment that exists in the country. For
example, the financing of food security programmes in Bolivia is
directed towards reducing food vulnerability and fully supple-
ments the ALA line of aid for regional economic integration and
the improvement of basic infrastructures (drinking water and
sanitation). The budget for the food security line accounts for
some 50 % of Community cooperation in Bolivia.

Another example is Ethiopia, where additional EDF financing for
food security is provided for in the country strategy paper (CSP).

52.
The ‘dispersion’ to which the Court’s report refers is due
to the fact that the budget heading is frequently the only one that
can be implemented in non-priority countries with fragile institu-
tions, so that it has to cope with a multitude of needs that are
often difficult to identify precisely.

In Yemen, intervention sectors were targeted on the basis of the
domestic food security policy (see paragraph 27); the programme

The Commission welcomes the Court’s finding that the
54.
projects have been carried out adequately and have been of real
value to the populations.

In Bolivia, the irrigation projects visited by the Court were car-
ried out in accordance with the contract specifications. Certain
parts were not operational as the beneficiaries had not main-
tained them.

In Ethiopia, Government involvement is at regional level.
56.
It participated in the defining of strategies and regional action
plans that were implemented by regional food security offices
within the administration.

In Yemen, the central Government will have to be the driving
force in most of the projects set up. The new food security pro-
gramme also provides for stronger public institutions.

57.
In Niger, the central role in the common State/donor
management system is in practice played by the Prime Minister,
who coordinates food security operations. It is nevertheless regret-
table that the State’s financial participation is relatively small.

59.
The Commission agrees with the Court that local com-
munities will feel responsible only if they are involved as early as
the identification phase. This was possible in Bolivia owing to the
Government’s decentralisation policy. The extent to which local
populations participate is also dependent on Government policy.

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In Georgia, the participatory approach is still difficult
60.
owing to the socioeconomic context. However, the process of
preparing the framework poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP)
made the Government aware of the need for such an approach.
The food security programme provides for an information system
to be set up to give the Government a better picture of the social
situation of the most vulnerable populations.

In Yemen, the Commission is currently placing emphasis on
increasing participation by local populations. This is now part of
the training priorities to be carried out by the consultancy respon-
sible for the programme.

62.
The countries benefiting from aid from the food security
budget heading often have fragile institutions and a relatively
unstructured private sector (including the civil society). Imple-
menting such programmes can be fraught with difficulties, lead-
ing to increased delays.

As stated in COM(2001) 473, there is an excessive gap between
the moment of committing funds and the launch of the project.
The following remedies have been proposed and are being imple-
mented:

— to complete the programming process nine months ahead of

a given budget year,

— to launch the identification and appraisal process immedi-
ately after completion of the programming process in order
to allow sufficient time for analysis, design and appraisal of
programmes and projects,

— to refine the programming guidelines and shorten the pro-

cess of interdepartmental consultations,

— to engage increasingly in multiannual programming.

According to the guide to the programming and imple-
66.
menting of budget support for developing countries, Regulation
(EC) No 1292/96 prohibits direct budgetary aid.

The food security programmes of the budget-
67 and 68.
support type are generally discussed with the beneficiary govern-
ments and the other donors concerned.

The minimum condition for implementation of budget-support is
that the country concerned has a satisfactory programme of eco-
nomic reform approved by the IMF and the World Bank, so as to
ensure that the country has an appropriate fiscal framework in
order to intervene directly in the State budget.

When the Commission took the decision concerning the four
countries referred to by the Court, the macroeconomic condi-
tions had been satisfied.

The budget support programmes under the food security budget
heading focused among other things on reform schemes aimed at
improving national budgetary and accounting procedures. How-
ever, because of the extent of the improvements needed, the pro-
cess will be a medium-term one, during which the food security
programmes will endeavour to introduce more efficient and trans-
parent public finance practices into national government institu-
tions, in cooperation with the IMF and the World Bank.

69.
The conditions defined in each country for setting up
budget support are, on the one hand, the macroeconomic condi-
tions known as the ‘general conditionality’ connected with the
satisfactory implementation of the macroeconomic reform pro-
grammes of the Bretton Woods institutions (see paragraph 67).
On the other hand, a number of stricter conditions, referred to as
‘specific conditionality’, are aimed at improving medium-term
food security. Payment of budget support thus depends chiefly on
compliance with these sectoral conditions that involve only the
sectors connected with public spending policies and programmes
having an impact on food security.

70.
One of the many tasks of the LFSUs was indeed to moni-
tor food security operations and report to the delegations. Devo-
lution will give the delegations an important part to play in the
monitoring of programmes.

As a result, in countries with stringent rules on exchange reserves
and where the currency market and import system are liberalised,
the currency facility makes it possible to contribute to the ben-
eficiary’s currency reserves so that the private sector can import
the foodstuffs to meet domestic requirements. This currency facil-
ity then makes it possible to generate counterpart funds (indirect
budget support) in order to support sectoral reform programmes
and public expenditure programmes connected with better food
security.

71.
As regards Yemen, the delegation and the Government
were not much involved in the monitoring. However, the Com-
mission points out that some monitoring was introduced, in par-
ticular through visits by the Commission’s technical assistance
office in San’a (EC-TAO), the food security technical assistance
office, the delegation in Amman and the Commission. In Septem-
ber 1997 the Commission had given the task of monitoring the
programme to a private firm (GFA) under a one-year service con-
tract entitled ‘Monitoring services for the Yemen food security
programme’.

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C 93/29

In Georgia, the food security programme (FSP) is developing a
more transparent system with the Agriculture Ministry for plan-
ning and following up public expenditure by strengthening the
budget department and the department responsible for defining
agricultural policy. This is regarded as essential by the FSP in order
to ensure the internalisation of budget accounting methods within
the sectoral Ministries targeted by the programme, in close coor-
dination with the Ministry of Finance and the Treasury. A large
proportion of the conditions attached to the FSP concern improve-
ments to the management of public expenditure, including moni-
toring and budget planning, although the Ministries will require
some time to adapt and implement them.

Furthermore, these reforms in the pilot Ministries fit in very well
with the more general reform of national public finances pro-
moted by the IMF.

73 to 75.
have been carried out from headquarters.

The Commission stresses that evaluations and audits

As regards evaluations, account should be taken of those carried
out at local level. In Bolivia, for example, 46 evaluations of micro-
projects were carried out from 2000 to 2002.

In addition, the Commission is finalising the identification and
definition of monitoring and impact indicators that will make it
possible to rationalise and homogenise future programme evalu-
ations.

As regards audits, in addition to those carried out by the Com-
mission, there are also the audits carried out in connection with
contracts with NGOs which exceed EUR 100 000. An audit pro-
gramme has also been set up for 2003 under which account will
be taken of the Court’s comment that audits should be carried out
while projects are underway in order to remedy any problems in
time.

The Commission plans to introduce such a system in

76.
2003.

beneficiary countries. These specific instruments will make it pos-
sible to produce diagnoses and the necessary corrective action so
that it can be taken into account in the definition of the condi-
tions for subsequent programmes.

78 to 83.
Coordination with Member States through the Food
Security/Food Aid Committee (FSFAC) has improved over time
but is still unsatisfactory, and this despite recent efforts deployed
by the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies. The flow of information
is merely one way from the Commission to Member States’ del-
egations. The Commission has, however, succeeded in taking part
increasingly in discussions on overall programming as well as on
policy and strategic issues of common interest.

Ultimately, the tasks of the existing Food Aid Committee should
be entrusted to the Commission’s development committees in
order to increase policy coherence and rationalise comitology.

84 to 87.
Systematic coordination at the local level between
Community delegations, EU Member States Representations and
other major actors is mandatory. The quality of this process
depends largely on the political, social and economic environ-
ment of the host country and its willingness to dialogue and share
information. By definition, Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 to a large
extent operates in countries and regions in crisis and disarray.

This coordination is extended to the Bretton Woods institutions
(World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) only in cases
involving structural changes (policy and institutional reform pro-
cesses and budget support). Coordination with the UN system
and the NGO community focuses on crisis and post-crisis assis-
tance.

In the context of its dialogue with the African Union (AU), the
Commission, in collaboration with Belgium and the FAO, will
assess existing information systems in Africa with the objective of
harmonising and strengthening them.

The Commission is also concerned by the point raised by
77.
the Court. It has accordingly introduced a specific framework
contract for audit operations and finalised the standard terms of
reference which should make it possible to improve audits of this
kind.

The Commission makes considerable efforts to encourage devel-
oping countries to use national development strategies as the
main tool for formulating domestic policy, planning and deliver-
ing services and as the sole coordination mechanism with exter-
nal donors. Capacity-building is one of the main instruments for
helping governments and civil society to play their respective
roles.

The guide to the programming and implementing of budget sup-
port repeated the importance of regular technical and financial
audits and appraisals of the quality of public expenditure in the

The Commission is pursuing its efforts to improve coord-

85.
ination with other donors.

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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Communication COM(2001) 473 and Council conclusions 15390/
01:

88.
In line with Regulation (EC) No 1292/96, national food
security strategies have been formulated to provide a coherent
framework for Community and other actors’ interventions. With
the emergence of broader national development strategies (pov-
erty reduction strategies or others), food security objectives and
programmes are gradually being integrated into a single national
framework as well as the Community national and regional strat-
egy papers.

The Commission agrees that food security, as the most
89.
basic dimension of poverty, is primarily a development objective.
Accordingly, food security needs to be addressed by all the avail-
able instruments in the short, medium and long term. In this con-
text, one of the roles of Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 is to bridge
the gap between short-term humanitarian aid and the long-term
(Community mainstream development instruments: EDF, ALA,
MEDA and others).

The Commission also agrees that an efficient and consistent use
of Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 requires substantial coordination
efforts.

Recommendation 1

It is the Commission’s view, shared by all major actors,

90.
that:

— acknowledge that Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 has a distinct
role (see comments under section 33) and should be main-
tained at this point in time,

— propose to carry out a second more in-depth evaluation in
2004 to look at the broader conceptual and strategic devel-
opment framework in which Commission support to food
aid and food security is provided.

92 and 93.
The Commission takes note of the Court’s recom-
mendation. However, it considers that the in-depth evaluation
already planned for 2004 is the appropriate context in which to
look at that issue.

94 and 95.
COM(2001) 473 makes a number of proposals to
speed up the programming, identification and appraisal process.
For more details see comments under section 62.

Recommendation 2

96.
The financing of information systems for the Commis-
sion’s food security strategy remains a priority; their ‘appropria-
tion’ by governments is always a delicate matter; in some coun-
tries, the financing is included in the State budget.

— food aid/food security objectives, as the most basic dimen-
sion of poverty, are included in the overarching development
objective of poverty alleviation,

There is a pressing need to enhance, in a sustainable manner,
developing countries’ capacity for poverty and food security analy-
sis as the first step to formulating comprehensive national devel-
opment strategies.

— food aid/food security concerns must be integrated into
national policies and development strategies (such as pov-
erty reduction strategies),

Recommendation 3

— activities financed under Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 must
be complementary to short-term crisis interventions on the
one hand and long-term development operations on the
other; national development strategies or, in their absence,
national food security strategies constitute the tools to ensure
this complementarity and to avoid any duplication.

97.
A lot of work in this context is underway, but there is a
need to harmonise competing information systems (particularly
at regional level) and to make them government owned and sus-
tained.

Work is underway to address this shortcoming, which is

98.
evident.

The Commission acknowledges, however, the need to use the
budget heading strictly as defined in COM(2001) 473. This requires
a very strict screening of food security measures and activities in
the process of project identification and appraisal.

91.
The Commission does not share the Court’s conclusion
that it is necessary to ‘discontinue Regulation (EC) No 1292/96 in
its present form’ at this point in time.

99 and 100.
The new CRIS database set up in 2002 will
gradually provide the necessary information on the financial situ-
ation in the Commission departments dealing both with external
relations and implementation of the budget. In addition, devolu-
tion and the allocation of tasks between headquarters and delega-
tions have clarified responsibilities and will help to give delega-
tions an overall picture of the entire project cycle and enable the
Commission to follow use of funds in real time.

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Recommendation 4

100.
The Commission agrees with the Court’s comments. It
has since taken steps to resolve the problem. CRIS/Data entry, the
database shared by the Commission and the delegations for all
operating headings, will enter into general use in 2003 and will
gradually provide complete and accurate data on the use of funds
at both delegation and Commission levels, to allow the latter to
fulfil its supervisory function.

As part of the accounting modernisation, the Commission is tak-
ing action to address this point by developing functionality in the
system to offset intermediate and final payments against advance
payments. This matter will be the subject of a Communication to

the Commission in December 2002. Within SI2 (one part of Sin-
com2), it is possible for departments to create their own local
budgetary structures which allow for a separation between food
security payments and other payments funded from the same
budget headings to be made. It is not, however, technically feasible
at present to reflect these local structures in R/3 (the other part
of Sincom2).

101 and 102.
The Commission shares the Court’s analysis
and the main thrust of its recommendations, which in fact form
part of the Community’s guiding principles for development
cooperation. We must, however, recognise that the political, social
and economic environment in developing countries determines
the limits of what can be achieved.