Annexes to COM(2012)586 - EU approach to resilience: learning from food security crises - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2012)586 - EU approach to resilience: learning from food security crises. |
|---|---|
| document | COM(2012)586  |
| date | October 3, 2012 |
4.2. Focusing on prevention and preparedness
The response of the international community and affected countries to the crises in the Horn and the Sahel has shown significant progress in the capacity to address the consequences of the crises. However they have also underlined the primordial importance of prevention (stopping a crisis from happening) and preparedness (ensuring that an individual, a household, a country, or a region is ready to manage the effects of an adverse event).
It is therefore crucial that:
– Over the long-term, national and regional programmes address the underlying causes of vulnerability. Reduced vulnerability to shocks is only possible if it is embedded within partner countries' development policies. To develop these processes it is necessary that risk analysis, including disaster risk management and food crisis management, are integrated in national/regional policies. In a similar way, adaption to climate change and policy frameworks like the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) should also be integrated in national policies.
– Experience gained from initiatives like SHARE and AGIR or successful pilot projects on DRM such as those supported by the Commission's Disaster Preparedness Programme (DIPECHO) should be better disseminated. One of the challenges is to see how successful community-based, bottom-up projects can better feed into national and regional governmental policies.
– Governance structured for disaster management need to be enhanced and stakeholders’ capacity needs to be strengthened at local and national levels. Strong local structures are essential in order to mitigate risks and to ensure the effectiveness of prevention and preparedness efforts as well as initial response operations.
– Public private partnerships should fully be used in appropriate contexts such as the recent G8 "New Alliance for Food and Nutrition Security" initiative,
In the case of food crises, there needs to be an integrated approach to tackling the root causes of food insecurity. In terms of food availability, this covers the diversification of food production, which may be constrained by environmental degradation and climate change. Access to food products requires functional markets and safety nets, noting the importance of reserves, insurances schemes, storage instruments, farmers' access to market and financial services, and emergency stocks. It also includes investments in rural infrastructure and in research and technology transfer. From a long-term perspective, support to sustainable agriculture is paramount to build up resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa where the sector provides employment to 60% of the population, notably the most vulnerable.
The Ethiopia Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) provides valuable lessons. It provides transfers in the form of food or cash to the most vulnerable households in the country in return for participation in public works.
The PSNP is the largest social transfer scheme in sub-Saharan Africa and is cost-effective (about one third the cost) in comparison to humanitarian interventions.
Tackling the hidden crisis of child under-nutrition to reduce tomorrow's adults' vulnerability: Hunger and under-nutrition kill nearly 2.6 million children per year. Under-nutrition affects one in three children in developing countries. Often the problem starts before birth due to undernourishment of the mother. Under-nutrition is a root cause of vulnerability, especially for children up to the age of 2. It lowers intellectual and physical development, thereby reducing the capacity of tomorrow’s adults to cope with adverse events. Moreover it costs many developing countries up to 2-3 percent of their Gross Domestic Product each year extending the cycle of poverty and impeding economic growth. The EU supports partners’ efforts to reduce under-nutrition in short and long-term. Approaches are required across multiple sectors such as health, agriculture, water, sanitation, economic growth, and education. The EU supports the SUN (Scaling Up Nutrition) movement, which provides a framework for country partners' leadership.
Tackling the drought in North KENYA. 3.7 million Kenyans were in immediate need of food, clean water and basic sanitation during the 2011 drought. Under SHARE, the EU is enhancing its support to boost recovery and resilience building, through: assistance to streamline the Kenyan early warning system; institutional support to the Ministry of Northern Kenya; support to the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) managing a Disaster and Drought Contingency Fund (NDDCF); enhancement of local authorities' capacities to manage an early response; and community level livelihoods projects expanding economic opportunities. Stronger institutions and increased investments in arid lands by the Government of Kenya are expected to better prepare the country to mitigate the impact of similar crisis.
4.3. Enhancing the response to crisis
Drawing inter alia on the experience gained in the Horn and the Sahel, the following elements can help improve the impact of the responses to crises when they strike:
– The preparation of a joint analytical framework prepared by both humanitarian and development actors that:
· identifies the root causes of the crisis as well as the precise impact on the most affected populations.
· assesses on-going interventions to see if the root causes are being addressed and also to see if there are gaps in the assistance that is being provided.
· identifies the areas, both in terms of sectors and geographic regions, where an enhanced resilience approach could have the most impact.
· defines strategic priorities for the short-term (early recovery) as well as for the long-term within a coherent "Resilience Approach"
– There needs to be an increase in short-term financing to support the early recovery phase. Recent initiatives highlight the need for a higher degree of flexibility in programming to react to fast changing needs, without reducing on-going medium/long term activities to address root causes. New modalities of assistance like EU Trust Funds should be considered to tackle emergency or post-emergency situations.
– Most major crises span across borders. The capacity of regional organisations needs to be strengthened so that they can develop cross-border initiatives and promote regional integration.
– For major crises, light structures should be set up to enable donor coordination and a structured dialogue established with partner countries and regional organisations. It is necessary to define and formalise who does what, based on the comparative advantage of each actor in a given context. Both development and humanitarian actors should be actively engaged.
– Finding short-term interventions that have a long term impact. Even though short-term responses, and humanitarian assistance in particular, are mostly focused on life saving and asset protection, such activities can also have a long-term impact. For example, shifting from food aid to cash transfers can have a long-term effect in stimulating the local market and financing public works that can reduce the likelihood of future disasters or mitigate their impact. These types of intervention should be identified and prioritised.
– Where violent conflicts exist the resilience strategy and the wider EU political and security approach should be mutually supportive and consistent, and synergies should be developed at the levels of instruments notably the Common Security and Defence Policy instruments and the Instrument for Stability.
Flexible funding through the EU's EUR 1 billion Food Facility, AFSI and V-FLEX - The food price crisis of 2007/08 led to a response of unprecedented scale from the international community. The EU was the first donor to take proactive measures and announced a EUR 1 billion Food Facility, demonstrating the EU's ability to react on time and on a large scale. One year later, in 2009, donors pledged US$22 billion in support of sustainable agriculture and food security (the L'Aquila Food Security Initiative, AFSI). The EU stepped up further support, committing US$3.8 billion. Two other mechanisms exist for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries: the FLEX (Fluctuations in Export Earnings) assists governments facing sudden losses of export earnings and the "Vulnerability FLEX" (V-FLEX) design to help countries most affected by the 2009 economic downturn due to their poor resilience. This instrument worked pre-emptively, based on forecasts of fiscal losses, with adjustments for vulnerability, acting in a counter-cyclical way to capture national financing gaps.
5. 10 STEPS TO INCREASE RESILIENCE IN FOOD INSECURE AND DISASTER PRONE COUNTRIES
1. Resilience can only be built bottom-up. The starting point for the EU approach to resilience therefore is a firm recognition of the leading role of partner countries. The EU will align its support with the partner's policies and priorities, in accordance with established Aid Effectiveness principles.
2. Action to strengthen resilience needs to be based on sound methodologies for risk and vulnerability assessments. Such assessments should serve as the basis for elaborating national resilience strategies, as well as for designing specific projects and programmes. The EU will support the development of national resilience strategies as part of wider development strategies. The EU will engage with partner countries and key international actors to improve the methodologies for developing the assessments underlying such strategies. In order to ensure effectiveness, the EU will moreover put in place a framework for measuring the impact and results of its support for resilience.
3. In countries facing recurrent crises, increasing resilience will be a central aim of EU external assistance. EU-funded programmes will be based on a common operational assessment prepared by humanitarian and development actors, covering medium to long-term interventions. They will focus on addressing the underlying causes of crises, notably through support for prevention and preparedness activities. It will work closely with partner countries to establish capacities to elaborate and implement strategies and Disaster Reduction Management plans at national and regional level.
4. The Commission will systematically include resilience as an element in its Humanitarian Implementation Plans. The Commission will moreover strive for joint programming of the resilience-related actions in its humanitarian and development assistance so as to ensure maximum complementarity, and to ensure that short-term actions lay the groundwork for medium and long-term interventions.
5. Flexibility will be key to responding to the needs of disaster-affected countries. The Commission will continue to ensure maximum flexibility in implementing its humanitarian programmes. For development funding, in times of unforeseen crises and major disasters, the Commission will seek maximum flexibility in mobilising non-programmed funds. Additionally, the Commission will introduce flexibility into the programme design to allow quick and timely action. The EU will consider the use of Trust Funds to intervene in emergency or post-emergency situations.
6. When working to improve resilience in fragile or conflict-affected states, the EU will pursue an approach that also addresses security aspects and their impact on the vulnerability of populations. This will include an active political dialogue with partner countries and organisations in the region concerned.
7. The EU will seek to replicate existing initiatives such as SHARE and AGIR, as well as successful projects on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). It will share and exchange lessons with its partners in order to multiply and scale up successful approaches - with the objective of incorporating them in national resilience strategies. The Commission will review regularly progress made on the resilience agenda, looking in particular at programming, methodologies and results.
8. The EU will promote innovative approaches to risk management. Working with the insurance and re-insurance industries is a particularly promising way forward. The Commission will bring forward a Green Paper in early 2013 on the role of insurance in disaster management.
9. For countries facing recurrent crises, the EU will work with host governments, other donors, regional and international organisations and other stakeholders to create platforms at country level for ensuring timely exchange of information and coordination of short, medium and long term humanitarian and development actions to strengthen resilience.
10. The EU will promote resilience in international fora including the G8, G20, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the Rio Conventions, the process for revision of the Millennium Development Goals, the development of Sustainable Development Goals and discussions on the follow-up to the Hyogo Framework for Action of 2005-2015. Resilience will feature as a key theme in its partnerships with organisations such as FAO, IFAD and WFP, as well as UNISDR, the World Bank, and civil society organisations.
In the first quarter of the 2013, the Commission will prepare an Action Plan to set out the way forward on implementation of these principles.
[1] COM(2011)637, as endorsed by May 14 2012 Council Conclusions
[2] COM(2010)127 final
[3] COM(2009) 147 final. White Paper "Adapting to climate change: Towards a European framework for action
[4] EU Strategy for supporting disaster risk reduction in developing countries COM (2009) 84 of 23.02.2009. Towards an EU response to situations of fragility: engaging in difficult environments for sustainable development, stability and peace COM (2007) 643 of 25.10.2007.
[5] Commission Staff Working Document SEC (2012) 102 of 11 April 2012.
[6] Alliance globale pour l'Initiative Résilience (Sahel) – http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/613&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&
[7] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
[8] The scope of the Alliance covers the greater Horn: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Djibouti as well as Sudan and South Sudan. The Secretariat is provided by USAID.