EU Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid‘Living Apart Together’

Geert Laporte & Alfonso Medinilla

12 January 2017

Outline

1. The EU in the development and humanitarian

landscape

2. The EU and the Humanitarian-Development Nexus:

an impressive policy framework with a long history

3. Rapidly evolving reality calls for more synergies

between both worlds

4. Key questions for the debate

• Leading donor in both humanitarian aid and development cooperation

• “Payer, not a player”

• Increasing calls for greater coherence and synergies between short-term humanitarian interventions and long-term structural focus (“root causes”)

1. The EU in the development and humanitarian landscape

Two dominant visions

Need for a fully integrated approach

• Development cooperation & humanitarian aid along with other external policies of the EU should serve the same foreign policy interests

• “Transcend the divides” and treat humanitarian and sustainable development goals as a single global challenge (UNSG)

• Adopt a collective approach in crisis, conflict and fragility situations with short term and longer-term actions

Need to maintain independence and specificity of humanitarian aid

• Humanitarian aid should be exclusively framed by the humanitarian principlesof strict neutrality, impartiality, independence and humanity

• Fears of politicisation of humanitarian aid by making it an instrument of a political and development agendas (MSF-refugee crisis)

2. The EU and the Humanitarian-Development Nexus: an impressive

policy framework with a long history

3.1. Gradual maturation of the EU’s policy framework

3.2. Policy pillars

• Three DGs of the Commission ( DEVCO, NEAR, ECHO) + EEAS

• Specific mandates and priorities• Multiplication of programmes and

financing instruments• New approaches that span

development cooperation and humanitarian aid: EUTFs

• Overall trend from aid-centered architecture to political and crisis management architecture

3.3. A complex EU institutional architecture to deal with crisis and fragility

3. Rapidly evolving reality calls for more synergies between both worlds

3.1 Increasingly blurred lines

• Changing nature of crisis and conflict (more protracted and internal)

• Spectacular increase of humanitarian needs• 90% of humanitarian appeals longer than 3

years –average 7 years

Source: ODI 2015

• Gradual expansion of temporal and functional scope of humanitarian mandate: multi-year planning, relief operations, diversity of actors, services (e.g. education), etc.

• Need to review the conceptual and institutional divisions that underpin the EU’s humanitarian and development actions?

• Refugee and migration crises

• New levels of urgency and need for political responses (e.g. Turkey)

• Redefined context for relief and humanitarian aid:• EU humanitarian aid inside the EU and

(transit) partner countries • New impetus for the resilience agenda (EU

Trust Funds)

3.2. 2016 a pivotal year for the EU abroad: time to rethink its approach?

1. EU development cooperation but also humanitarian aid have become less of a technical issue and more a political one

2. EU Strategic interests have moved to the forefront, which may complicate principled humanitarian action

3. Growing ambiguity and interdependence between humanitarian and development objectives as the nature of crisis changes

4. UN and EU strategic documents gradually abandon the distinction between humanitarian and development interventions, yet separate institutions and ‘communities’ are maintained in the funding and organizational architecture

3.3. Four key trends at stake

4. Key questions for the debate

• How to combine a more political and pragmatic approach to situations of fragility while maintaining a principled and impartial approach to sensitive humanitarian emergencies?

• Towards a single strategic approach (integration) or ‘coordination’ or ‘complementarity’ models?

• What level of ‘joined-up approach’ between humanitarian aid and development cooperation is feasible and desirable?

Question 1: How to ensure greater strategic coherence between humanitarian and development interventions?

• What are the major bottlenecks at the operational level between humanitarian aid and development agencies?

• How to break down silos in practice? What could be done to overcome vested interests in both the development and humanitarian communities (institutions, international organizations, civil society)?

• How to incentivise effective coordination and more convergence?

Question 2: How to ensure greater operational coherence and interagency coordination?

• Does the EU have the necessary and adequate financial instruments for tackling the new challenges?

• What could be the impact of Post Cotonou (e.g. possible budgetisation of EDF) and the mid-term review of the MFF (and next MFF) on the external financing architecture?

• How will the EU funding landscape evolve towards 2020? What will be the risks and opportunities?

Question 3: Is the EU’s existing range of financial instruments well suited for engaging in situations of fragility and protracted crisis?

Thank you!

www.ecdpm.org

European Centre for Development Policy Management