Blog: Measuring our results: a new type of reporting on the EU's development cooperation - Hoofdinhoud

Major step forward on transparency and accountability

Today the EU is introducing a new way of reporting on development cooperation, made possible thanks to last year’s launch of the EU International Cooperation and Development Results Framework, of which I am particularly proud. The aggregated results in the report show significant achievements, with the additional results for individual countries providing further evidence of our accomplishments. It's important to underline that these development results are first and foremost the merit of our partner countries, which in many cases are also responsible for managing the programmes and projects.

This report demonstrates how committed the EU is to strengthening accountability and transparency towards citizens, development partners and civil society organisations. What is unique about the launch of this report is that, for the first time, the European Commission reports on the actual results of development cooperation activities by using quantitative indicators. The information on the results has been drawn from the reporting of the partners implementing the EU funded projects and programmes (i.e. the partner countries themselves, international organisations, Member State development agencies, international financial institutions and NGOs).

The report is also part of our efforts to monitor progress towards our international development commitments. It serves as an excellent basis to build on as we develop the necessary mechanisms to track progress in EU contributions to implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are at the core of the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The figures provide a wide range of results selected from the majority of projects and programmes financed by the EU, which ended between mid-2013 and mid-2014 (covering approximately 90% of the financial amount of the portfolio of projects and programmes ending in that period).

The publication of this report marks an important accomplishment since it aligns the European Commission with a small group of international organisations and donors who are contributing to the definition of best international practices in measuring results.

The report also shows that there is a need for sustained effort in several areas of cooperation. For example, 31.3% of the EU-funded cooperation and development initiatives covered by the report promote gender equality and women's empowerment. This is clearly not enough - we want to come closer to our target of mainstreaming gender equality into 75% of projects and programmes.

It is my hope that, building on these important foundations of the EU results framework and of this report, the EU, together with our Member States, will continue to work together towards common results approaches across agencies. For my part, I am determined to ensure the European Commission’s strong commitment to an approach that is better focused on results, in order to show citizens in the EU and across the world that every euro we spend on development is helping to make a real difference.