In a special report published on Wednesday 19 November, the European Court of Auditors highlighted a number of weaknesses in the European Commission’s support for the fight against hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa. An audit - the first in this area for ten years - has highlighted shortcomings in the design, monitoring and sustainability of a series of EU-funded projects.
The auditors found that EU interventions - more than €11 billion committed in the region since 2014 - have not always targeted the most vulnerable populations, in particular due to the lack of a documented methodology to clearly define priorities. According to the Court, this failure has slowed international progress in the fight against food insecurity.
In particular, the auditors noted that “there was no predefined typology of the different responses to be provided depending on the crisis context in which an action was to be implemented, nor any guidelines for assessing the cost-effectiveness of projects”.
Their analysis was based mainly on visits to Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia, as well as desk audits in Chad, Niger and South Sudan on the implementation of the link between humanitarian aid and development.
“Only about half of the projects in the sample were subject to results-based monitoring”, observed the auditors, regretting in particular the “low number of [monitoring - editor’s note] visits by EU delegations” on the ground.
In addition, the auditors documented, with photos, equipment financed by the EU that had not been used - or had even become unusable. In the report, they mention a computer room at the Waruhiu agricultural training centre in Kenya, where thirteen computers were delivered without internet access; water tanks, irrigation pipes and solar pumps installed in Zambia, but impossible for local communities to maintain; and televisions, flat screens, a generator and a motorbike in Ethiopia that have never been used.
Recommendations. In 2024, 295 million people in 53 countries were facing high levels of acute food insecurity. More than two-thirds of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
“At the current rate of progress, millions of people will still be undernourished in 2030, millions of children will still be affected by various forms of malnutrition, and the UN’s ‘Zero Hunger’ goal will be far from being achieved”, said Bettina Jakobsen, the member of the Court responsible for the audit, in a statement issued on Wednesday 19 November.
The Court therefore recommends improving project design, strengthening the ‘humanitarian aid-development-peace’ link, optimising monitoring and reporting, and increasing the sustainability of projects to ensure their long-term impact.
In its response, the European Commission welcomed the auditors’ report. The EU institution broadly shares their conclusions and “accepts” their recommendations.
Link to the Court of Auditors’ special report: https://aeur.eu/f/jjb
Link to the European Commission’s response: https://aeur.eu/f/jjc (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)