Geert Laporte & Alfonso Medinilla ECDPM 12 January 2017

1. EU Development Cooperation and
Humanitarian Aid
‘Living Apart Together’
Geert Laporte & Alfonso Medinilla
12 January 2017

2. 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

3. • 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

4. 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 principles
of 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)

5. 2. The EU and the Humanitarian-
Development Nexus: an impressive
policy framework with a long history

6. 3.1. Gradual maturation of the EU’s policy
framework

7. 3.2. Policy pillars

8. • 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

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

10. 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?

11. • 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?

12. 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

13. 4. Key questions for the debate

14. • 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?

15. • 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?

16. • 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?

17. Thank you!
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