The European Commission adopted on June 28th 2010 its Annual Report 2010 on the European Union's development and external assistance policies and their implementation in 2009. This Commission Staff document portrays the main elements and results of the European Union's external action in development and external assistance.

The European Commission is the second largest provider of development aid in the world, with commitments amounting to €12 billion, and plays a leading role in coordinating EU efforts to make aid more effective.

During 2009, specific instruments were set up to help the world's poorest to face the triple economic, food and environmental crisis and delivered results: for instance, more than 50 million people are receiving assistance to face hunger from the EU Food Facility, the budgets of 15 countries in Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific were supported to help them resist to the pressure of the economic crisis, and the EU agreed a 'fast-start' funding of €2.4 billion annually for 2010-2012 to assist developing countries in adapting to climate change.

The Commission's  Annual Report 2010 on the European Union's development and external assistance policies and their implementation in 2009 explains the role played by the European Commission to help the poorest countries deal with the crisis and details the evolution of its development policies and their implementation in 2009.

New instruments to respond to the crisis and climate change

The European Commission proposed and implemented a set of timely, targeted and coordinated measures in 2009:

• EU Food facility: The €1 billion EU Food Facility put in place at the end of 2008 has provided a fast and efficient response in tackling food insecurity. Of the €1 billion pledged under the facility, €837 million were allocated by the end of 2009.
• EU "Vulnerability FLEX" instrument: €236 million were committed under the so-called Vulnerability FLEX mechanism to help 11 African, 3 Caribbean and 1 Pacific countries reduce funding shortfalls in their 2009 government budgets
• Climate change: the EU intensified its cooperation and dialogue with developing partners. The Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) received an allocation of €35 million to support poor countries most vulnerable to climate change, in particular the least-developed countries and small island developing states. In December, the EU agreed on 'fast-start' funding of €2.4 billion annually for 2010-2012, to assist developing countries in adapting to climate change and in moving to low-carbon strategies.

In 2009, the European Commission also started a mid-term review of its cooperation programmes and financial allocations to adapt them to evolving realities and progress to date.

Increasing the effectiveness and impact of European Commission's aid

The Commission continued to make its aid more effective and acted as catalyst and coordinator to improve synergies among Member States. In order to implement the internationally agreed Accra Agenda for Action on aid effectiveness, the Commission focused on demonstrating concrete and measurable results in the three priority areas of: increased use of country systems as first option to channel bilateral assistance; implementation of division of labour among donors to reduce aid fragmentation; and better quality technical cooperation.

The Commission takes pains to measure the impact of its development cooperation actions. Results for 2009 show that project performance improved compared to the previous year. 94% of the projects are now rated positively.

Some key elements of 2009 EU Development and External Assistance

• External aid represents 9 % (€12 billion) of the total EU budget (€143 billion).
• Geographical spread of EU development aid: financial commitments for European countries (Eastern European countries and pre-accession countries) amounted around to €2 billion, €618 million for the North of Africa, €3.9 billion for Sub-Saharan Africa, €669 million for the Middle East, nearly €1.4 billion for South, Central Asia and the Far East, €899 million for Latin America, €89 million for Oceania and €2.1 billion for unallocated and multilateral aid.
• Sectoral breakdown: social infrastructures (education, health, population and reproductive health, government and civil society and other social infrastructures) keeps the lion's share (34%) of European Commission's development cooperation with commitments amounting around to €4 billion; €1.7 billion (14 %) went to the production sectors (agriculture, forestry, fishing, industry, mining, construction, trade and tourism) and €1.2 billion (11%) were targeted at economic infrastructures and services (transport, communication, energy, banking and financial services and business).
• Budget support: In 2009, the Commission committed €2.4 billion of EU aid funds for external cooperation as budget support, a mechanism under which European funds are made available in form of grants and calls for tenders in development aid, to governments of beneficiary countries and their national budgets, provided agreed conditions for payment are met.