“ EC support over the period considered accounted for third country needs and priorities in relation to ESI-related issues and was accordingly aligned
Egypt 98- 08 Several donor coordination mechanisms have been established between the
Commission and EU MS as well as with other donors:
at strategic level: the Luxembourg process gathers the Commission, EIB, WB and IMF, while coordination between the Commission, EU MS and the EIB takes place in the MED/ENPI Committee at programming level; and
at implementation level: the Development Partners Group gathers all donors in the field and ten thematic sub-groups have been put in place. (p74)
Consultation and involvement of EU MS in the CSP/NIP formulations has progressively improved over the evaluation period. Donor coordination within the DPG has been mostly limited to exchange of information. In 2009, coordination was variable across sectors. (p75)
Coordination with other donor-funded interventions has not been the general rule. It materialised during implementation when foreseen at design stage. It was generally stronger for BS interventions with the matrix of disbursement conditions being the result of extensive discussions. (p75)
Complementarities between donors’ interventions have generally not materialized. The research of complementarities was increasingly pursued by donors at the end
of the evaluation period. (p75)
EIB IF/OR
(2010) The mid-term evaluation of the EIB IF and OR operations concludes that there were few synergies between the EIB and the Commission, despite potential benefits of such synergies (cf. p. 84: “The Commission and the EIB generally operated on parallel tracks with few synergies despite the potential benefits of such synergies for enhancing development impact.”).
It explains indeed that several mechanisms for EIB coordination with the Commission and the EU MSs exist and were operational both at Headquarters level and at the level of specific operations. However coordination activities remained generally a formality and therefore both the EIB and the Commission operated de facto on parallel tracks:
mutual consultation on the CSP/RSP took place but was mainly formal;
there were no reported cases where both institutions called upon each other to benefit from their respective expertise and experience ;
consultation at project level was also a formality and was not always preceded by an informal discussion by the Commission and EIB ;
there was no cooperation in terms of policy dialogue and little reference in the policy dialogue conducted by the Commission ; and
resources of regional offices were insufficient for optimising the cooperation potential, despite demonstration of the utility of local presence.
As a result, EIB and Commission operations were “compatible”, but did not show strong synergies at operational, strategic or sector level. Several reasons were adduced to explain this lack of coordination and complementarity: the difficulty of combining a Commission programming cycle over several years with a demand-led EIB approach; the fact that the EIB and the Commission were not active in the same sectors, the lack of EIB representation at local level and of resources in general for ACP/OCT operations.
However several elements show that there was room for potential synergies that could have enhanced the development impact:
in a number of cases the Commission and the EIB were active in the same sectors in which strong coordination could have been expected ;
the combination of EIB loan and equity financing with Commission TA has proved effective but remained limited ;
both institutions provided considerable funding in many countries of interventions and therefore there was room for a mutual strengthening of visibility.
Similarly, coordination between the EIB and other EU initiatives was also scarce, such as with BizClim, PROINVEST, the TradeCom Facility, the ACP Multilateral Trading System Programme, the CDE or the EU/ACP Microfinance Framework Programme. Nevertheless, stronger cooperation could be observed, particularly for the later two initiatives.
(see pp. 84-85 of the EIB IF /OR Evaluation).
Channeling DBs and EIB (2008)
Several elements indicate that potential synergies were at the heart of the Commission’s decision to channel funds through the EIB and that this precisely led to different types of value added of the Commission’s support.
Commission’s support was based aimed precisely at complementing the EIB- managed financial instruments (interest rate subsidies, technical assistance, risk capital) with the provision of Commission grants (p. 82.). This allowed according the evaluation (p. 85-86) the generation of different types of value added:
for the Commission: it had a broader range of instruments to offer to beneficiaries, it could rely on EIB expertis and experience and it could strengthen the EC-EIB co-operation in addition to strengthening its visibility;
for Partner Countries: they can benefit from a larger array of instrument in economic cooperation with the EU and from better lending conditions in less productive sectors as well as from the EIB expertise and experience
for the EIB itself: larger EIB operations, not possible with own resources, better implementation of EIB loans, higher attractiveness of EIB loans. Also: the critical mass provided by the Commission, strengthened EC-EIB cooperation and a leverage for developing projects with an environmental dimensionCDE (2011) The CDE evaluation states that opportunities of synergies with the Commission remained underexploited (in the response to EQ 1):
“The CDE made policy commitments favouring synergies with Commission programmes with a view to achieving maximum coherent impact with its limited resources. Overall, its support was in line with the Commission private sector development policies but actual complementarities with Commission programmes have been rare. Contacts between the staff of the RFO [Regional Field Offices] and of the EUD varied according to the country and to timing, with a net improvement in 2010-2011.”
Source: ADE (for the European Commission), Evaluation of the Centre for the Development of Enterprise, 2011 (p22) Banking Measures in the Mediterranean area
No evidence of this. Evidence rather of lack of communication between the EIB and the Commission, especially at EUD level which likely prevented potential synergies: