EC Annual Action Plan 2008: Implications for NMS

The thematic programme “Non State Actors and Local Authorities in Development”, which succeeded the former budget lines “NGO Co-financing” and “Decentralised Co-operation”, aims at supporting small scale initiatives proposed and/or carried out by civil society organisations and/or local authorities from the European Union and partner countries in the area of development. The programme´s three main objectives are to support

1. development actions to be implemented by non state actors or local authorities in close cooperation with the local communities and most vulnerable population groups, aiming at promoting an inclusive and empowered society in partner countries


2. actions in the EU and acceding countries aiming at raising public awareness of development issues and promoting education for development (DE) to mobilise greater public support against poverty reduction


3. actions aiming at achieving more efficient cooperation, facilitating structured dialogue in the area of development.

The recently approved Annual Action Plan (AAP) 2008 is, after the “Non-State Actors and Local Authorities in development – NSA-LA Strategy Paper 2007 – 2010" the basic document for the EC to detail the conditions of the guidelines for the different Call for Proposals within EC financing instruments.

What´s new in comparison to the last AAP 2007?
After a lot of lobbying work done by the CONCORD Working Group on Funding for Development and Relief (FDR) during the last year and thanks to the input of different actors, the EC added 10 more countries to the list of countries covered by the new programme (Cape Vert, Djibouti, Haiti, Liberia, Mauritania, Solomon Islands, Togo, Afghanistan, Morocco and Tunisia), while Malawi is not on the list any more.

The implementation of the thematic programme is this time foreseen biyearly - which means that the 2008 and the 2009 budgets will be combined and Calls for Proposals will be published only every two years.

What is the same as in the previous AAP with regard to New Member States?
In the thematic programme on Development Education (see 2nd objective above), the actions proposed by organisations from the 12 New Member States are favoured: the rate of EC co-financing can reach up to 90% of the action's budget and the EC grant can be lower than for old member states , namely EUR 25.000,-. It seems that also some other eligibility criteria will be kept as smooth as in the last Development Education Call 2007.

Note that the Calls will be launched already in November/December 2008!
The EC is currently preparing the launch of 5 Calls for Proposals (In-country Actions, Multi-country actions NSA, Multi-country actions LA, Development Education, Networking), while at the same time 70 EC delegations are working to launch their local calls. An overview of all the centralised and local NSA and LA calls and their main objectives will be published on the EuropeAid website by the end of September. Check out: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/worldwide/civil-society/index_en.htm (Download the AAP 2008 from the same link.)

According to information given by the EC, the Calls will be opened in November/December 2008 and “the spirit of the calls will be the same” with only slight adoptions and adjustments which will be made within the Guidelines of the Calls.

Information provided by Petra Kreinecker, TRIALOG