Development policy: complementarity between the Community policy and the policies of the Member States

OBJECTIVE: this communication summarizes the current situation with regard to complementarity between the Community's development cooperation policy and the policies of the Member States and presents a number of proposals designed to guarantee complementarity. CONTENT: the Commission calls in its communication for various coordination mechanisms in order to guarantee complementarity between the Community's development policy and the policies of the Member States. The Community's development policy and the policies of the Member States need to be based on common objectives and these objectives need to be translated into action taken and evaluated jointly. The Commission points out in this respect that, although a number of such mechanisms have been implemented over recent years, they operate somewhat sporadically and it feels that a more structured device needs to be defined and sectoral policies need to be re-updated if project programming and evaluation are to be better coordinated. It therefore recommends that: . the Council define or update sectoral policies, in order to guide the Community and the Member States in the practical aspects of development cooperation, agree on joint priorities and conduct a joint analysis of and adopt mutually acceptable solutions for certain countries or regions; . the Committees (MED, ALA, EDF) establish national and regional programmes based on information collated in the field; . developing countries increase cooperation on and coordination of national and Community projects; . groups of experts introduce monitoring of action undertaken and jointly evaluate the results obtained. At the same time, the Commission pinpoints all the areas which coordination should cover: . as far as long-range planning is concerned, it pinpoints the need to strengthen existing mechanisms so as to improve the involvement of the Member States; . in the ACP countries, the programming document for the operations to be implemented should be drawn up in consultation with the Member States' representatives in the countries in question. This form of cooperation could also be extended at planning committee level by making provision for a preparatory discussion before programmes which appear to qualify for Community aid are drawn up. Transparent information from the Commission to the Member States and vice versa would need to be introduced in order to achieve this; . in the Mediterranean and ALA countries, mechanisms should be introduced to strengthen coordination during preparations for work over the entire range of current cooperation; . as far as evaluation is concerned, action undertaken should be evaluated jointly by the Community and the Member States (the Commission will draw up an action programme for forthcoming years).�