1. Despite the newly-published Statistical Dashboard allowing access to data about EU funding to and through CSOs and EU external action spending more generally, the claim made in the EC’s report on EU Engagement with Civil Society18 that external action support to CSOs has now reached €2bn remains unsubstantiated. This challenge is a reminder that the EC still has steps to take towards better data coherence and transparency. Following the funds, through regranting and outsourcing up until the final recipient, would be the aim. Nonetheless, DG DEVCO deserves recognition for the Statistical Dashboard, representing real progress in these areas.
- Recommendation to the EC: Continue improving and publishing data on financing for EU external action.
2. The CSO-EC partnership today is more and more based on formalities (FPA, structured dialogue) rather than implementation (grants and programming, including input processes). It is positive that the EC sees civil society as a dialogue partner. Nevertheless, the multiple roles of civil society need to be respected and continuously supported.
- Recommendation to DG DEVCO: Ensure that formal tools for partnership are substantiated by operational partnership with a representative array of CSOs.
3. CSOs are characterised by being polyvalent; it is a waste of the partnership to expect them to fit into the political actor box only. The EC should enable CSOs to contribute to thematic programmes other than CSO-LA and EIDHR to bring to the table their valuable grassrootslevel access and experience, much needed in Least Developed Countries, and serving a variety of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). If the EU wants to contribute to development in the best way possible, it will be active in finding and supporting CSOs that are doing good work.
- Recommendation for DG DEVCO, especially the Civil Society Organisations, Foundation (A5 Unit): Enable and encourage CSOs to partner in all operational sectors and promote CSO partnership among geographical and thematic management units. Champion partnership with CSOs in the next GPGC MIP.
4. Programmes built for CSO access, such as CSO-LA and EIDHR, should be complementary to accessible envelopes for CSOs in all programmes, rather than replacing them.
- Recommendation for EC management and Council decision-makers: Include CSO envelopes in all geographical programmes to ensure the value-added of CSO partnerships across the board. At the same time, maintain privileged accessibility to CSO-LA and EIDHR to encourage political activity, advocacy and defence of human rights around the world.
5. In the experience of the previous MFF, when instruments are consolidated (GPGC), CSOs seem to lose out. For the new MFF, the pressure to simplify is likely to lead to a single External Action Instrument. A CSO implementing partnership can be a principle across the new instrument.
- Recommendation for the European Parliament, the MFF drafters and Council decision-makers on the MFF: Learn from past experience of consolidating budget lines, and be sure to maintain CSO access to geographical and thematic development programmes within the new External Action Instrument. Recognise CSOs in the new instrument as an operational partner and values-based ally in development cooperation and external relations.
6. The EC’s funding patterns should not exacerbate the shrinking space for CSOs in Europe and partner countries. EC development cooperation has a secondary effect, or “European Added Value”, of bolstering support for the EU among citizens, while European CSOs channel citizens’ solidarity. Partnering with a diversity of CSO shapes and sizes in Europe helps to maintain trust in development cooperation as an EU policy area.
- Recommendation to the EC: Be aware that limitations to partnership with European CSOs may adversely affect solidarity among citizens. As a matter of European Added Value, consider the interconnectedness of values-based development cooperation and citizenship when identifying funding modalities and implementing partners.
7. What conditions make funding more accessible to what kind of CSO? Awareness of these factors would help to implement policies on the EC-CSO partnership more coherently. Both implementers and EC staff would benefit from alternative modalities to CfP: before issuing them, the EC should think about how accessible they are to various types of CSOs. Likewise, more transparent implementation of Trust Funds would render the (flexibilityoriented) modalities used more accessible to CSOs.
- Recommendation to EC planners and project managers: Consider more carefully the conditions that make funding more or less accessible to different kinds of CSOs when choosing implementation modalities. Use other donors’ models and other Commission DGs’ practices to find ways to cooperate with CSOs that avoid the bureaucratic weight of CfPs. Examples might include follow-up grants and special conditions for “newcomers” to grant seeking.
8. Limitations of EC administrative capacity may be one of the main reasons that we have been seeing bigger, less accessible grants and other modalities since 2014. Giving inadequate attention to administration budgets can undermine effective implementation – including the choice of implementation partners. The EC might also consider saving administrative resources by switching trends between grants and tenders: making bigger, fewer procurement contracts and offering more attention to the issuance of grants.
- Recommendation for Member States, Council and European Parliament budget decision-makers: Provide adequate and realistic resources through the administrative heading to properly implement the next MFF.
9. Given the pressure on EU staff in headquarters and delegations to implement development budgets, the system of assigning Focal Points to civil society, human rights and other categories may be hindering rather than helping. Very often, especially in smaller European Union Delegations (EUDs), the same person wears several of these hats.
- Recommendation for DG DEVCO, especially the Civil Society Organisations, Foundation (A5 Unit): Streamline the approach to CSO relations.