Research Papers

With the Treaty of Lisbon, and in particular the creation of the European External Action Service, the EU aimed at improving the legal and institutional provisions to enable more coherence and coordination in its external policies. In the case of development policy, the EU should now be better mandated to carry forward the challenge of coordinating EU institutions’ and Member States’ aid activities. This paper investigates the role of the newly established EU Delegations in the field of donor coordination on the ground. It adds empirical evidence to the debates on (1) the role of the EU in the new aid environment and (2) the implications of the Lisbon provisions for development cooperation. The paper first problematises the gap between the EU’s coordination policies and practices on the ground. Building on a literature review and an explorative field study in Tanzania and Zambia conducted in January-February 2011, several explanations are put forward, reflecting a complex interplay between interests (visibility, political influence), institutions (procedures, expertise/capacities, organisational structures) and ideas (attitude towards EU integration, attitude towards aid effectiveness agenda). Second, this paper will look at the extent to which the post-Lisbon arrangements and the EU’s international leadership aspirations are compatible with the complex and functionally driven coordination realities on the ground, which also include non-EU foreign development actors such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the United States and emerging Southern donors such as China and India. The findings will be based on additional field research in Tanzania and Zambia.