an opportunity to make a qualitative leap forward in how the EU deals with decentralisation, local development and LAs. It may lead to the elaboration of a more coherent EU response strategy which overcomes the limitations of the forms of engagement used in the previous phases.
The initial EU approach of the 1980s–1990s focused on the local level and sought to pro-mote genuine bottom-up processes of local development increasingly steered by both civil society and LAs. While these programmes yielded concrete results at the local level, their ability to ensure scaling-up and sustainability was less evident. Subsequently, the EU shifted
(2) The structured dialogue for an efficient partnership in development was a process that took place between 2010 and 2011, bringing together more than 700 civil society organisations and LAs from all over the world, as well as participants from the EU Member States, the European Parliament and the European Commission.
During a wide range of seminars, participants identified ways to improve the effectiveness of all actors involved in EU development cooperation. These recommendations were compiled in the 2011 Budapest Declaration. The structured dialogue heavily influenced subsequent communications regarding civil society (EC, 2012) and LAs (EC, 2013).
its attention to national framework conditions by supporting decentralisation as a public sec-tor reform process aimed at transferring functions and resources to sub-national entities. Yet this shift in focus to national systems and institutional changes meant that the development dimensions of the reforms were lost.
The new policy framework of the 2013 communication — with its focus on empowered LAs and territorial approaches — holds the potential to re-establish the link between decen-tralisation and development. It seeks to combine the bottom-up approach to development, enriched by a broader territorial perspective, with the elaboration of supportive national decentralisation policies and institutional changes that help to create the conditions for genuine territorial dynamics.
2.1 Dispensation of EU funding
Across the four phases, EU support for decentralisation, local governance and local/territorial development has been channelled through a wide range of partner regions and countries.
Figure 2.2 provides a regional overview of EU funding for the period 2002–2014; see Annex 2 for a more detailed analysis of countries that benefited in each region. The data reveal the following.
F I G U R E 2 . 2 EU support 2002–2014, by region and African sub-region
LATIN AMERICA AFRICA NEIGHBOURHOOD SOUTH ASIA AND PACIFIC
WEST EUR 539 MILLION
41 % EAST
EUR 533 MILLION
41%
SOUTHERN EUR 230 MILLION
18%
CENTRAL EUR 92 MILLION
7 %
13 % 69 % 4 % 14 %
EUR 252
MILLION EUR 1.3
BILLION EUR 88
MILLION EUR 289
MILLION
■ EU financial contributions for direct support to national decentralisation policies were spent in a limited set of countries: Benin, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali and Tanzania. From 2008 onwards, there has been a striking decrease in new major interventions in support of national reform agendas(3).
■ Africa — particularly francophone Africa — received the major share of EU resources for decentralisation, local governance and local development(4).
■ Within Africa, countries in East and West Africa received the major share of EU resources.
Lesser amounts were dedicated to Southern and Central Africa. The top three countries receiving EU funds for activities related to decentralisation, local governance and local development are Ethiopia (EUR 313 million), Mali (EUR 156 million) and South Africa (EUR 104 million).
■ Most financing for decentralisation, local governance and local development was provided through the EU’s geographical instruments — funds allocated to particular countries and regions under various cooperation agreements — including the European Neighbourhood Instrument, the Development Cooperation Instrument and the European Development Fund. A significant portion of the funding was channelled through various thematic instru-ments, including Rehabilitation, Decentralised Cooperation, NGO co-financing, the European Instrument (previously Initiative) for Democracy and Human Rights, and the Development Cooperation Instrument’s thematic programme for CSOs and LAs (previously for non-state actors and LAs)(5).
2.2 Assessing EU support to decentralisation and local governance: the 2011 thematic evaluation
A thematic evaluation of EU support to decentralisation covering the period 2000–2009 was conducted in 2011. It pointed to areas where the EU could add value as well as to areas that have proved more difficult to address effectively. In general, EU support seems to have been more effective in addressing comprehensive public sector reform; it has been less effective in focusing on the political dimension of key reform areas (see Figure 2.3).
Based on these findings, the evaluation concluded that the EU has ‘a unique, but largely unre-alised, potential for global support to decentralisation in partner countries’ (Particip GmbH, 2012). In order to tap into that potential, the evaluation, in its central recommendation, encourages the EU to develop ‘an explicit response strategy that clearly embeds future sup-port for decentralisation reforms within a wider public sector reform agenda’. Concurrently, it should intensify efforts to better understand the politics of the reform process, broadening country ownership and ensuring concrete development outcomes such as qualitative and sustainable local services.
(3) This decline is partly linked to EU programming cycles (a new cycle began in 2014), but could also indicate a declining commitment in direct support to decentralisation.
(4) Factors contributing to the low level of aid for decentralisation processes in Asia include the limited demand for interventions in this area and the presence of other donors with more experience than the EU (e.g. the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank). The two largest EU contributions in Asia were targeted at Afghanistan and Cambodia — countries with a rather poorly developed public sector structure and no significant degree of fiscal decentralisation.
(5) This thematic programme has proven difficult to access for LAs, primarily because of its high transaction costs and ill-suited call for proposals system.