Accountability
In line with its mission, EuropeAid cares that development policies be translated into action and reports on these activities and the use of aid budget in an accurate, accountable and transparent manner.
Its main actions to ensure accountability are:
- Developing a culture based on individual and collective responsibility.
- Ensuring quality in the design and implementation of projects – in terms of their relevance, sustainability and timeliness.
- Results-based monitoring and evaluation: thorough and regular assessment means that feedback on lessons learned can be used to inform subsequent activities.
- The establishment of management, supervision, support and control systems that are required to achieve EuropeAid’s objectives. The aim is to ensure sound financial management, consistency and transparency in contract award procedures. Good systems also allow for simplification and rationalisation of external aid management procedures and help to improve the auditing of operations.
- Developing a dialogue with other European institutions, partners and stakeholders from civil society, business and government.
- Reporting in a transparent way on the activities, results and use of allocated resources. In accordance with the Charter of Authorising Officers – through sub-delegation – each EuropeAid director reports regularly to the director-general, taking into account field reports from the devolved delegations. In turn, the director-general must report annually to the College on EuropeAid’s activities, policy achievements, management performance, internal controls and financial statements. The declaration appended to the director-general’s report is an explicit demonstration of EuropeAid’s accountability for the management of resources it has at its disposal.
EuropeAid’s activities are also subject to scrutiny by the EU’s Court of Auditors and the Legislative Authority in the context of annual discharge procedures relating to the way the Commission executes its budget and its use of the European Development Fund (EDF).
Sources and useful links: