Final Report of the study on Coordination and Complementarity of CSPs with National Development Priorities

ECDPM contributed to this evaluation by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, January 2007 

This evaluation is one of a series of joint evaluation studies, initiated by the Heads of European Union Member States’ evaluation services and the European Commission (EUHES). The evaluations aim at assessing the role played by the Maastricht Treaty precepts of coordination, complementarity and coherence in the European Commission (EC) and the EU Member States’ development cooperation policies.

The evaluation study also recognises the wider and growing demand from both donors and partner countries for:

• Increasing alignment with partner countries’ development strategies

• Cuts in transaction costs related to development cooperation through alignment of administrative procedures and systems

• Strengthening the coordination and complementarity in development aid

  Since the late 1990s the European Commission, like many other donors, has made a major effort to build up a comprehensive system for planning and management of development aid, based on formulation, implementation and monitoring of development aid around Country Strategy Papers (CSPs). This has provided some scope for administrative decentralisation and for considerable increase in technical capacity at the EC delegations worldwide. As part of this focus on CSPs the EC has emphasised the need for alignment, coordination and complementarity in development cooperation and for their integration in the CSP planning and process at headquarter as well as delegation levels.

  The focus of this study is to examine the role of CSPs and other similar “mechanisms” of the EC and their equivalent in Member States (MS) in improving coordination and complementarity between EC and MS, and to assess country ownership of development policies and cooperation strategies.