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RSC, Number 7, Issue 1, January 2015, pp. 5-44
The coordination and the EU instruments for linking humanitarian aid and development cooperation
Janja Mikulan
School of Advanced Social Studies, Nova Gorica (Slovenia) Corresponding author's e-mail: janja.mikulan@fuds.si
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Abstract: The paper addresses the EU institutional challenges of linking relief, rehabilitation and development (LRRD), with special focus on the lack of coordination between two directorates of the European Commission, the Directorate-General for humanitarian aid and civil protection (DG ECHO) and the Directorate-General for development and cooperation - EuropeAid (DG DEVCO). The coordination between these two directorates is limited to consultations and cooperation attempts, while practical collaboration is informal. Primarily, weak coordination can be attributed to the diverse nature of humanitarian aid and development cooperation, resulting in different principles and objectives. And secondly, the lack of collaboration is mostly the result of institutional dimensions of current EU aid architecture, ranging from different procedures and practices of directorates to the EU instruments. Paper shows that existing humanitarian and development instruments which have the potential for LRRD are time-bound, content-limited and often receive insufficient, slow, unpredictable and inflexible funding.
Key words: Humanitarian aid, development cooperation, LRRD, DG ECHO, DG DEVCO, coordination, EU instruments.
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Introduction
Nowadays, the growing numbers of natural catastrophes and expansion of extremely complex conflicts, create needs demanding coordinated, coherent and complementary response of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. Both forms of aid are extremely interlinked since humanitarian actions often address emergency needs in developing countries and at the same time this humanitarian emergencies affect development processes. Although the concept of linking relief, rehabilitation and development (LRRD), has the significant potential to bring about sustainable peace and development, it is still one of the most complex challenges confronting international aid community. In the paper we will be mostly focused on ensuring LRRD in complex crisis, where it is the most challenging to obtain successful LRRD, especially since "in the current aid architecture, it's not always clear who is responsible for ensuring funding and resources in complex humanitarian situations" (Fowlow, 2012).
According to various authors studying and writing on the concept of LRRD in the recent years, the basic idea of LRRD is linking short-term humanitarian aid measures with longer-term development programs to ensure sustainable response to crisis situations, irrespective of the size and nature of the disaster (natural and/or man-made). As stated in the Principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD), humanitarian assistance should be provided in ways that are supportive of recovery and long-term development, striving to ensure support, where appropriate, to the maintenance and return of
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sustainable livelihoods and transitions from humanitarian relief to recovery and development. As also stressed by Van Dok, Varga and Schroeder (2005: 14-15) humanitarian aid should encompass: ensuring survival, reconstruction, rehabilitation and prevention. "In turn, well-designed development cooperation programs should reduce the need for emergency relief, and LRRD development activities should include measures for conflict prevention, disaster risk reduction, disaster preparedness and the development of early warning systems" (Ramet, 2012: 4). In the study on the LRRD made by Policy department of directorate-general for external policies of the union, authors emphasized that LRRD tries to harmonize short-term relief and long-term development through effective political and financial coordinating mechanisms in order to develop complementary and comprehensive approaches for a sustainable response to crisis situations (Morazan, Grunewald, Knoke and Schafer, 2012). Moreover, European platforms of humanitarian and development NGOs1 are sharing the views that LRRD thinking seeks to ensure that humanitarian programming does not undermine development work and that development programming is building on humanitarian knowledge and results. In sum, platforms are stating that ensuring LRRD would clearly be a "smarter aid" (VOICE and CONCORD, 2012: 1-2).
1 VOICE (Voluntary Organisations in Cooperation in Emergencies) is a network representing more than 80 European NGOs active in humanitarian aid worldwide and CONCORD is the European NGO confederation for relief and development uniting 26 national associations and 18 international networks.
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However, in practice the link between relief and development is still very weak due to variety of reasons and in this paper we will focus on how EU institutional dimensions, including established financing instruments, are affecting LRRD. First and foremost the distinction between different phases of crisis response still represents one of the major problems. There is still a widespread belief that immediately after the disaster, it is necessary to provide emergency assistance, which will focus on saving lives and will satisfy the basic needs of the population, such as the need for water, food, shelter, etc. In the rehabilitation phase relevant actors are supposed to provide assistance to set up more permanent structures and services. And such circumstances would then be adequate for the establishment of developmental programs and projects. However, such phased approach to aid in many regions and countries suffering from repeated shocks and uncertain situations such as Haiti, Sahel, Sudan and South Sudan, Afghanistan etc. proved to be inadequate, especially where country is confronting humanitarian and development needs or where needs in the different parts of the country are dissimilar. Therefore it is extremely important to envisage LRRD as contiguum (not continuum) or simultaneous approach, where different humanitarian and development aid instruments need to be applied at the same time and in coordinated, coherent and complementary fashion.
The analysis of the implementation of the European LRRD concept in different partner countries and crisis situations made by Morazan et al. (2012) shows that, despite some progress made in recent years, the funding gap in the grey area between relief and development still exists and the coordination and enhancement of LRRD activities is far from being institutionalized.
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Development assistance committee (DAC) of Organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD) underlines that joint analysis and programming between ECHO, DEVCO and EEAS (European external action service) that can lead to better, and more strategic programming in recovery settings, is not yet systematic, and faces bureaucratic challenges (OECD/DAC, 2012). DAC also highlighted the EU institutions' lack of tailored and/or sufficiently flexible financial tools make it difficult to bridge the gap between relief and development. Ramet (2012: 7-10) came up with similar findings that the problems of linking humanitarian aid and development programs are mainly the result of a lack of coordination, and existing DG ECHO and DG DEVCO procedures for mobilizing aid that are often impending complementarity.
Therefore the overall research objective of the paper is to examine the institutional challenges of LRRD from the EU perspective. In this sense we have developed two main research questions: What is the actual degree of coordination between the two main Directorate-Generals responsible for humanitarian aid and development cooperation - DG ECHO and DG DEVCO? To what extent are relevant humanitarian and development instruments enabling LRRD?
Paper is based on the analysis and interpretation of primary sources (contracts, agreements, programs, reports, etc.) and the analysis and interpretation of secondary sources (academic articles, studies, etc.). Certain conclusions were made on the basis of author's experiences of working for Slovenian national platform of NGOs for development cooperation and
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humanitarian aid, field experience (working on crisis preparedness project in Africa) and consultations with Jasna Djordjevic, international consultant in the field of international humanitarian assistance and former colleague of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva.
Degrees of aid coordination
Coordination is one of the necessary factors influencing the efficiency of policies, programs and project according to various authors such as Van Meter and Van Horn, Hogwood and Gunn (1984), etc. This is particularly true in the complex EU public policy environment where institutional coordination is the prerequisite for efficiency and effectiveness of aid.
Our analysis of the coordination between DG ECHO and DG DEVCO will be based on the theoretical assumptions of Disch (1990) who defined three degrees of intensity/commitment regarding aid coordination:
- consultation: this generally focuses on information sharing, either between host governments and donors, or within the donor community. Usually there are no formal commitments or decisions taken at this level, though there is often the intention or desire that the consultation will lead at least to informal understandings of improved practices along some defined dimension;
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-	cooperation: this is of a more strategic nature where policies, priorities, principles are discussed with the intention of arriving at some form of harmonization. This requires a degree of consensus as well as trust that may not cover all donors, though coordination across the entire donor community is being seen more and more, particularly in emergency situations;
-	collaboration: this addresses issues of procedures and practices, where there is a conscious effort to ensure that implementation of activities runs as smoothly and seamlessly as possible, independent of funding source. The typical cases are the early joint import support programs and now sector budget support in the form of basket funding where donors accept one set of disbursement, reporting, accounting and auditing procedures and where there is complete fungibility between each individual donor's contribution as well as public funds in that sector.
Linking humanitarian aid and development cooperation
"The concept of linking relief, rehabilitation and development (LRRD) started off as a UN initiative in the 1980s, when cases of natural disasters and violent conflicts increased, especially on the African continent, and a new understanding evolved that recognised that systemic factors, poverty and political instability actually constitute and increase the vulnerability towards
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natural disasters as well as in protracted crisis situations" (Morazan et al., 2012: 10). Types of assistance and their time-framework are clearly seen from the Figure 1. Although the need to link emergency relief and development is nowadays broadly accepted by scholars and practitioners, the gap between development of LRRD concepts and policy commitments, and practices in the field remains significant, including at the EU level.
Figure 1: From relief to recovery to development
Source: IFRC in Otto and Weingärtner (2013: 101).
The European Commission (EC) introduced the concept of LRRD in its 1996 Communication to the Council and the European Parliament (COM (1996) 153) that explains the need to link relief, rehabilitation and development in a complementary, coherent and efficient manner. Although the EC emphasized
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the benefits of coordinated response to conflicts, the continuum or chronological sequence of relief, rehabilitation and development was still seen in this Communication. That same year, the EU Council adopted Regulation No. 2258/96 on the rehabilitation and reconstruction operations in developing countries. Therefore the "rehabilitation" officially became an instrument of EU cooperation with developing countries. According to the EC "rehabilitation may be defined as an overall, dynamic and intermediate strategy of institutional reform and reinforcement, of reconstruction and improvement of infrastructure and services, supporting the initiatives and actions of the populations concerned, in the political, economic and social domains, and aimed towards the resumption of sustainable development" (Dieci, 2006: 5). The following two paragraphs will take a short overview of the importance of "rehabilitation" for LRRD in order to examine which EU instruments have the potential for LRRD.
There is a diverse terminology (rehabilitation, reconstruction, recovery) and various definitions related to the actions implemented during the "rehabilitation phase", however most of them share one common point and that is the strategic dimension of rehabilitation. The review of most of today's multiple, severe humanitarian crisis such as those in South Sudan, Central African Republic, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. indicate the political, economic, social and development dimensions of root causes of such crisis. Therefore rehabilitation in such complex contexts requests performance of a variety of actors who will carry out different types of interventions. And it is precisely at this point where a key challenge appears - LRRD demands coordination of actors from humanitarian and development sector that are guided by different
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mandates. As emphasized by Dieci (2006: 5) "it is clear that rehabilitation represents a dramatically difficult and uncertain challenge and that rehabilitation is not simply the "ring" linking relief and development but primarily a strategy which is owned by local actors and supported with external aid". In the study done by Chandran, Jones, Smith, Funaki and Sorensen (2008) it is emphasized that rehabilitation (defined as early recovery) should focus on securing stability; establishing peace; resuscitating markets, livelihoods, and services, and the state capacities necessary to foster them; and building core state capacity to manage political, security and development processes. As emphasized by many authors such as Manninen-Visuri (2006), Viciani (2003) etc. is it crucial in the rehabilitation phase to build and strengthen relevant institutions, and to follow the participatory and community based approach and empower local people and communities to participate in their recovery and be well prepared when and if a disaster happens. And last but not least we would like to mention one of the most innovative ways that has increasingly been discussed over the past years to connect humanitarian aid and development cooperation - cash transfers and/or vouchers2. Orneus (2012) points out that cash transfers and vouchers enhance the dignity and choice, and can be effective in promoting local markets.
2 Cash transfers provide money to people who can use it to meet their basic needs for food and non-food items or services. A voucher is a paper, token or electronic card that can be exchanged for certain goods or that has a certain cash value.
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In 2001 EC adopted second Communication on LRRD which came to conclusion that rehabilitation programs need to consider long-term consequences while stability and development can be significant for conflict prevention. Communication also emphasizes the link between relief, rehabilitation and development must be seen in a broader economic, social and political context and that these factors must be taken into consideration in the different phases and in the different areas of intervention. In 2003 EC established an Inter-service Group for LRRD, subsequently renamed into Transition Inter-service Group (TISG). The group is co-chaired by ECHO and DEVCO and was created to ensure more coherent response, to prepare concrete case studies on LRRD and encourage joint needs assessments (LRRD/DPP Steering Group 2003). However different studies (Koddenbrock and Büttner 2009;Morazan et al. 2012) have found that TISG is not the most functional and that their impact at the operational level is much weaker than expected.
The importance of ensuring LRRD is mentioned in the key strategic documents, which cover the areas of humanitarian and development aid such as the European Consensus on development (2005) and the European Consensus on humanitarian aid (2007). Moreover LRRD it is mentioned in numerous other EU documents such as A thematic strategy for food security -Advancing the food security agenda to achieve the Millennium development goals (2006), Towards an EU response to situations of fragility - engaging in difficult environments for sustainable development, stability and peace (2007), EU strategy for supporting disaster risk reduction in developing countries (2009) etc. Latest developments of LRRD are mainly related to discussions and
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concepts about response in fragile states, disaster risk reduction, early recovery and resilience. Most recent documents connected to LRRD are the Communication "The EU approach to resilience - Learning from food crisis" (2012) and its Action plan for resilience in crisis prone countries (2013). Documents are drawing on experiences in addressing food crisis, mainly in Horn of Africa and Sahel, which were presenting major humanitarian catastrophes at that time. All the above mentioned documents are recognizing that strengthening resilience lies at the interface of humanitarian and development aid.
One of the most recent studies on LRRD done in 2013 (IOB study on LRRD financed by Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and RedR (2013), international humanitarian NGO focusing on resilience, emphasize the resilience means the capacity of a system, community or society to resist to shocks or stresses or to change in order that it may obtain an acceptable level in functioning and structure. This is determined by the degree to which the social system is capable of organizing itself, and the ability to increase its capacity for learning and adaptation, including the capacity to recover from a disaster. Resilience can potentially serve as an overarching common goal and analytical framework for different policy fields such as disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, peace-building, social protection, development aid and humanitarian response. There is - at least in theory - a direct link between humanitarian aid and development cooperation in the sense that a humanitarian crisis, and ultimately a humanitarian response, can be avoided by developing resilience. There are some ongoing case studies about the application of the resilience approach, mainly in drought-related contexts
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(Otto and Weingärtner, 2013: 29). Such recent initiatives supported by EC are AGIR and SHARE. AGIR (Alliance Globale pour l'Initiative Resilience) which has been agreed among EC, numerous countries, humanitarian and development agencies and other organizations, aims to strengthen the resilience of the affected people in the Sahel region. Among others AGIR is giving special attention to simultaneous mobilization and coordination of short-term (humanitarian) and long-term (development) instruments of EC in order to address current crisis and structural vulnerabilities. Similar objectives are included in SHARE intiative (Supporting the Horn of Africa's Resilience) designed to strengthen the resilience of countries in the Horn of Africa. It aims at improving the capacity of countries and communities to face the challenges linked to climate change, poverty and conflicts. However authors of the above mentioned study underline that the guidelines for building resilience that stress the focus on ownership and long-term approaches, which however have the high potential for approaches favouring LRRD, can lead to conflicts with the humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality in conflict settings (Otto in Weingärtner, 2013: 15 -16).
Continuing with milestones of LRRD at the EU level, we must mention the development of a tool named Joint humanitarian-development framework (JHDF) which was established in 2011 aiming at joint humanitarian and development planning in the analysis phase. The IOB study states that application of JHDF is flexible and can be applied as a comprehensive exercise at country level or as a half-day workshop at headquarters. Proposed steps for the analysis process are: discussion on the overall nature of the crisis, identification of the target population, joint analysis of the causes for the food
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insecurity of the target population, identification of EU responses, assessment of the coherence of EU interventions, definition of strategic priorities and design of an action plan (Otto and Weingärtner, 2013: 54).
As we have seen so far EC does not lack political and policy commitments to LRRD, and from the ECHO and DEVCO annual reports we are able to identify some good LRRD practices in the field, such as cases in Burundi, Zimbabwe and some countries in the Horn of Africa (Kenya, Uganda). However, most of the already mentioned studies are concluding that the implementation of LRRD still largely depends on the individual willingness to support LRRD and informal coordination. Further only 35% of the humanitarian organizations that participated in the study of Morazan et al. (2012) believe that EU follows a clear strategy regarding LRRD.
In the continuation of the paper we will take a closer look at the coordination between humanitarian and development DGs, followed by analysis of the established EU instruments and related financial aspects of LRRD.
Coordination between DG ECHO and DG DEVCO
As stated by the Evaluation services of the EU (European Union, 2007: 2324) typically a coordination process directed towards improving aid effectiveness might start by sharing information and data and then, increasingly move towards identifying issues of common interest, setting a joint agenda, the exchange of good practices and joint decision-making. After that, it may move further towards joint evaluation and monitoring, joint
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learning, harmonisation of procedures and perhaps, the setting of new standards. Preparatory EU studies on promoting policy coherence within the EU, found out that institutional coordination needs at least two additional, mutually reinforcing efforts to be successful (European Union, 2007: 24):
-	political commitment on the part of the relevant stakeholders; with leadership and clearly defined policy objectives, priorities and criteria for assessing progress;
-	adequate analytical capacity; effective systems for monitoring, evaluating impact; adequate capacity for generating, sharing and processing relevant information and for developing and implementing common standards.
As we have already seen, EU does not lack political commitment, however there are other challenges disabling LRRD that will be presented in the continuation of the paper.
Current EU legal and institutional framework designed for the implementation of LRRD requires the coordination of DG ECHO, DG DEVCO and EEAS. In the institutional context we cannot forget on the importance of coordination with ECHO field offices, EU delegations and other various actors in recipient partner countries (such as national governments and parliaments, local authorities, civil-society organization, etc.). However, for the purpose of this paper we will focus only on the coordination between two DGs responsible for humanitarian aid in development cooperation.
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According to Disch (1990) the first degree of intensity of aid coordination are consultations. We are particularly interested at the coordination at EC level, since Commission is the key public policy manager of the EU and a source of political and public-policy orientations. It drafts proposals for new European laws and manages the day-to-day business of implementing EU policies and spending EU funds. Commissioners meet once a week in the College of Commissioners. Individual content is presented by the commissioner who is responsible for a specific public policy area, followed by inter-service consultations and decisions taken collectively. In principle College also adopts the financial decisions (European Union 2013; Peterson 2006). Operational work of EC takes place in formally non-political departments, called Directorates-Generals (DGs), managed by the Directors-General. Prior to the adoption, the Directorate-General that presents the draft of financing decision has to launch inter-service consultation of other Commission departments concerned and has to obtain their agreement (DG ECHO Partners Helpdesk, 2012a: 1). Further, DG ECHO can use four different types of financing decisions (primary emergency, emergency, ad hoc, global plans) that are determined my different criteria such as the degree of urgency of response, nature of crisis, financial aspect of the decision, duration of humanitarian actions. EC recognised the need to have specific procedures for adopting financing decisions in the field of humanitarian aid and delegated to the Director-General of DG ECHO the adoption of certain financing decisions under very precise circumstances. These rules known as the "empowerment" concern financing decisions which have duration of up to 18 months and a value up to and including €30.000.000. However, DG ECHO is still obliged to
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consult with other DG's, including DG DEVCO, when adopting emergency decisions, ad hoc decisions and global plans, regardless of the amount of the decision. Consultations can last from 2-5 days (DG ECHO Partners Helpdesk, 2012a: 4-6). Therefore we can conclude that consultations between DG ECHO and DG DEVCO are present when it comes to the decisions related to LRRD.
Cooperation already represents a more strategic level of coordination, which can be detected between DG ECHO and DG DEVCO, however we can already notice deficiencies at this level of coordination. In 1996 and 2001 EC managed to adopt Communications on LRRD, proving that leading directorates for humanitarian aid and development cooperation, were able to obtain certain degree of policy harmonization. Results of cooperation are also seen from common development of already mentioned concepts and various common documents trying to incorporate LRRD. However certain concepts that have the potential for LRRD (DRR, early recovery) are mostly present in humanitarian sector only. Cooperation attempts are also seen from the establishment of TISG co-chaired by ECHO and DEVCO, but the functioning and results of the group are not in accordance with set objectives so far. Lack of cooperation between DG's is also seen from the key strategic documents for humanitarian aid and development cooperation - the European Consensus on humanitarian aid adopted and the European consensus on development. Although both consensuses, especially the Consensus on humanitarian aid underlines the need for cooperation and linkages between humanitarian aid and development cooperation, there are certain inconsistencies within and between the two documents. Consensus on humanitarian aid stresses that humanitarian principle of independence presupposes the "autonomy" of
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humanitarian principles of political, economic, military or other objectives (The European Consensus on humanitarian aid 2007). Although we strongly believe that humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence must be respected, we believe that such provisions can prevent LRRD since it is hard to imagine an efficient coordination by strictly following autonomy without any common objectives. When writing about disparities between humanitarian and development sector we can also mention that EC is signatory of two important documents aiming at improving the quality of development and humanitarian aid - Paris declaration on aid effectiveness and Good humanitarian donorship initiative (GHDI). However main principles of coordination, coherence and complementary of development aid underlined in Paris declaration, can to certain extent oppose quite narrow and principled mandate of humanitarian aid supported by GHDI. And regarding the (The European Consensus on development 2005) the major critic, expressed my Morazan et al. (2012) study, is related to the LRRD being seen only as an option rather than an approach useful in all contexts of development cooperation.
At the level of collaboration actors should standardize their procedures and practices, however the paper show that DG ECHO and DG DEVCO have not yet reached this level of coordination. As already stated, both directorates continue to strictly follow their principles and consequently assert their own procedures and practices. While EC has accelerated the ECHO contracting procedures, enabling fast, flexible and efficient mobilization of resources and implementation of measures, DEVCO and its partners are facing complex, time-consuming and inflexible procedures. We strongly believe that
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simplification and coordination of contracting procedures are crucial for facilitating LRRD. Since development NGOs are often present in the field and have already established relations with communities and authorities, they have good opportunities to respond on (forecasted) crisis. Therefore it is extremely relevant for development donors to be more flexible and distribute funds faster. In order to achieve such response and allow LRRD, EU should definitely rethink current project cycle management, that has its advantages, but at the same time disable LRRD due to its bureaucratic and time-consuming procedures, mostly related to complex and long-term calls for proposals. Further DG ECHO and DG DEVCO still didn't establish capacities for joint acquisition, exchange and assessment of key information regarding the situation and needs in the field. As Otto and Weingartner (2013: 55) emphasize, the context and needs assessment processes have high potential in terms of providing the contextual information and creating good linkages between different policy fields. First, context analyses and needs assessments for humanitarian programming should take long-term perspectives into account. Second, these processes could be used to overcome the 'two worlds apart' by bringing actors from the different policy fields together. Lack of collaboration is also seen from different practices regarding cooperation with the countries, building systems and ownership. Koddenbrock and Büttner (2009: 122-123) are convinced the core dilemmas of LRRD in protracted crises evolve around the relationship with the state and the willingness to promote more long-term systems building. According to authors this is a consequence of the relationship between humanitarian neutrality and independence and development assistance with its more transformative outlook, encouraging
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working with state and willingness to build systems instead of engaging in decade long service delivery. This choice has direct implications for increased accountability to beneficiaries and to their ownership. On the other hand Djordjevic (2013) believes that cooperation with state does not have negative impact on the respect of humanitarian principles. She points out that without proper cooperation with state, humanitarian organizations cannot operate successfully. And even if the organizations may be able to circumvent the national level, they simply cannot completely ignore the local authorities. On the basis of her experiences Djordjevic (2013) believes that in practice humanitarian organizations always cooperate with government but the difference is in intensity and forms of cooperation. On the other hand Otto and Weingartner (2013: 38) stressed working under the humanitarian imperative means that humanitarian actors need to be ready to intervene in a humanitarian context if a state is not willing or able to do so. This leads to the fact that humanitarian aid usually has a compensating or substituting character - sometimes even against the will of the local authorities and often without any contribution of the aid recipients. Bringing in substantial external capacities rather than building on what is already in place is one of the main differences between humanitarian and development aid. And according to requirements for successful institutional coordination underlined by the EU study on promoting policy coherence, EU is clearly missing an effective and efficient system for monitoring and evaluating the effects of LRRD in the field.
Our findings on the coordination between key directorates, which are clearly presented in Table 1, are largely in line with the views of implementing humanitarian organizations collected within the study made my Morazan et al.
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(2012). Only 11% of interviewed organizations fully or somewhat agree that ECHO, EEAS and DEVCO have effective coordinating mechanisms concerning LRRD, while concerning 78% of them believes that there are conflicts of interests among ECHO, DEVCO and EEAS in respect of LRRD activities.
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Table 1: Degrees of coordination between DG ECHO and DG DEVCO
DEGREES OF COORDINATION	DG ECHO IN DG DEVCO
Consultation	S Exchange of information and inter-service consultations; X certain exceptions for DG ECHO funding decisions.
Cooperation	S Weekly meetings of the Commissioners at the College of the EC; S two Communications on LRRD (1996, 2001); X with certain limitations regarding LRRD; S the establishment of Transitional Inter-service Group (TISG); X although assessed as not being functional; S development of concepts (such as resilience) and new documents regarding LRRD.
Collaboration	S Establishment of Joint humanitarian-development framework (JHDF); X separate and uncoordinated procedures and practices (needs assessment, building systems/service delivery); X lack of capacity.
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In the following chapter we will explore to what can the analysis of the EU humanitarian and development instruments offer an explanation of the institutional possibilities and challenges for LRRD.
Instrument for humanitarian aid (IHA)
In 1996 the Council of the EU adopted the Regulation 1257/96 concerning humanitarian aid. Regulation governs the implementation of all Union operations providing humanitarian assistance to victims whose own authorities are unable or unwilling to provide effective relief (Council Regulation 1257/96). Although LRRD is not directly mentioned in this regulation, there are certain indications on linkages of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. In the introductory part regulation underlines that whereas humanitarian assistance may be a prerequisite for development or reconstruction work and must therefore cover the full duration of a crisis and it may include an element of short-term rehabilitation aimed at facilitating the arrival of relief, preventing any worsening in the impact of the crisis and starting to help those affected regain a minimum level of self-sufficiency. Such approach of humanitarian aid is extremely important since United Nations (UN) estimate that "every US$7 spent on responding to a natural disaster could be offset by US$1 spent on preparedness and early warning. Likewise every
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US$1 spent on conflict resolution saves US$4 in humanitarian response" (UN in Costello, 2012: 14). Further, regulation stresses that humanitarian aid must be provided whereas there is a particular need for preventive action to ensure preparedness for disaster risks and, in consequence, for the establishment of an appropriate early-warning and intervention system.
Morazan et al. (2012: 21) note that the IHA proved to work well in response to acute emergencies (earthquakes in Pakistan and Haiti, cyclones in Vietnam and in the Philippines, military conflicts) and certain protracted crises, such as those which involve population displacement which lasts for an extended period (Chad, Darfur, Myanmar, Bangladesh). But they stress it is not adapted to managing transitions, nor sometimes even to providing efficient aid in the context of protracted crises or situations of long-term food insecurity. We can explain such conclusions with OECD/DAC (2012: 91) review underlining the limited time period and scope of IHA - only while emergency conditions are ongoing - usually 18 months maximum.
Development cooperation instrument (DCI)
Latest DCI was adopted in 2006 and launched in 2007, for the period 2007-2013. The development instrument is very comprehensive and complex instrument since it is covering three components: geographic programs, thematic programs and special Programme of accompanying measures for the 18 African, Caribbean and Pacific Sugar Protocol countries.
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Regarding LRRD, DCI stresses that Multiannual indicative programs for countries faced by conflicts or post-conflict situations should place special emphasis on stepping up coordination between relief, rehabilitation and development. DCI also underlines the importance of disaster preparedness and prevention and foresees the possibility of adopting special measures not provided in different documents in cases of unforeseen and duly justified needs or circumstances related to different types of crisis when these cannot be covered by other instrument. LRRD is also indicated in the article providing special measures may also be used to fund measures to ease the transition from emergency aid to long-term development operations, including those to better prepare people to deal with recurring crises.
We can conclude that DCI contain certain sections which indirectly indicate on LRRD, however such provision remain challenging for coherent crisis response. Morazan et al. (2012: 12-16) of the study on LRRD recognize that addressing fragility is not articulated as a primary objective and the related connections to transition strategies and linkages between humanitarian aid and development cooperation could have been explained more clearly. The mentioned study also emphasize that DCI has difficulties to actually see LRRD as a cross-cutting issue as the contiguum model would suggest.
Therefore the proposal for new DCI is very important for strengthening LRRD. From the LRRD perspective it is promising that Article 10 in the current draft of new DCI foresees leaving a certain amount of funds unallocated in order to increase the flexibility of the instrument and the possibility of reacting
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to unforeseen events (new political priorities, natural or man-made disasters, etc.). Article 11 introduces the possibility of having a Joint framework document that would lay down a comprehensive EU strategy for crisis response and stresses that Multiannual indicative programs can be adjusted through a midterm or ad hoc review, in view of achieved objectives as well as in light of newly identified needs, such as those resulting from crisis, post-crisis or fragility situations. And last but not least the Article 12 highlights the potential need for a swift response for countries in crisis, post-crisis or fragility situation and foresees a special procedure for an ad hoc review of the strategy paper and of the Multiannual indicative programme. However, Morazan et al. (2012: 33) suggested that the new regulations should be much more specific in tying up the unallocated funds with LRRD measures.
Instrument for stability (IfS)
Instrument for stability was established in 2007 by Regulation 1717/2006, replacing Rapid Reaction Mechanism. IfS focuses on a number of issues related to global security and development. From the instrument, donors can fund short-term responses to crises and preparedness. These measures should be oriented towards conflict prevention, support post-conflict political stabilization and ensure early recovery after a natural disaster. IfS can also finance long-term measures in the field of nuclear weapons proliferation, capacity building for responses to terrorism and organized crime,
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and capacity building for preparedness before and after the crisis. LRRD measures are referred in Article 4 of the above mentioned regulation. It states that assistance for conflict prevention, peace-building and crisis preparedness shall cover support for measures aimed at building and strengthening the capacity of the EU and its partners. Measures shall include know-how transfer, the exchange of information and best practices, risk or threat assessment, research and analysis, early warning systems, training and service delivery, structural dialogue on peace-building issues and necessary technical and financial assistance (Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an Instrument for Stability, 2006).
In practice the IfS is focused on the area of security and conflicts. Further its thematic strategic plan clearly emphasizes the link between security and development (Morazan et al. 2012: 13-14). However, Morazan et al. (2012: 14) are convinced that IfS must distance itself from central objectives in relation to nuclear weapons, terrorism and organized crime, if it should allow funding for LRRD measures, where it comes to financial gaps. Authors also assess the IfS is designed to enable LRRD, however it still remains mainly on theoretical level, while in practice it is rarely used. Study also emphasizes the challenge of EEAS being mainly responsible for the management of IfS. In this sense we strongly suggest coordination should be enhanced between all three key actors in Brussels - ECHO, DEVCO and EEAS, especially in the areas of conflict prevention and peace building that have a major impact on crisis prevention and development.
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Other instruments and programs
Good opportunities for LRRD are also provided by EC instruments in the area of food security: The Food security thematic programme and the EU food facility. Both instruments allow the financing of measures that have a lasting impact on the provision of food security of the affected countries. This is notably through a number of iniciatives for the development of agriculture, which still represents the main source of livelihood of the majority of the population in developing countries. In the context of establishing the financial perspectives for 2007-2013, the EC has created a new budget line for humanitarian food aid - Food aid budget line (FABL). URD notes that within FABL, ECHO started to support a number of new tools that contribute to LRRD, such as vouchers, cash transfers, programs "cash for work", etc. FABL also supports the distribution of productive assets such as seeds, tools and livestock. Further certain programs also cover training, education on health and hygiene, care of animals, etc. URD evaluation points out that with its scope of interventions ranging from emergency food aid and nutrition to recovery and resilience-building projects, the food assistance sector is at the heart of LRRD strategies. DG ECHO could further contribute to the development of EC policy on LRRD by ensuring that lessons learnt in the food assistance sector are shared more broadly throughout the relevant EC institutions (URD, 2009: 46).
Since it is of utmost importance to build state and civil capacities which will lead the rehabilitation and development processes, we must mention the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR). In 2006 it has
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replaced and upgraded the European initiative for democracy and the human rights. The EIDHR is designed to help civil society to become an effective force for political reform and defense of human rights. Therefore EIDHR can complement other EU funds, which are related to democracy and human rights. EIDHR is able to focus on sensitive political issues and innovative approaches and to cooperate directly with local civil society organizations which need to preserve independence from public authorities, providing for great flexibility and increased capacity to respond to changing circumstances. However, instrument was used to a very limited extent, especially in politically sensitive environments. Critics are also related to the fact that under the instrument it is difficult to choose strategic initiatives that contribute to sustainable change, that it is difficult to avoid supporting projects that can harm local guided process, and that the instrument is not suitable for rapid and flexible response in crisis situations due to long-term funding procedures, which are based on public tenders for the selection of projects and other administrative requirements and requirements for co-financing (Gourlay, 2006).
And last but not least it is very important to mention the program related to disaster preparedness and disaster risk reduction3. Such programs
3 Disaster preparedness aims to reduce to the minimum level possible, the loss of human lives and damage to buildings and natural infrastructure through the prompt and efficient actions to response and rehabilitation. Disaster risk reduction is the systematic development and application of policies, strategies and practices
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are extremely relevant for LRRD since they are considering risks while implementing development cooperation and proactive actions of humanitarian aid. In 1996 ECHO has established a DIPECHO programme (disaster preparedness ECHO). The key goal of the programme is to increase communities' resilience and reduce their vulnerability. DIPECHO is a people-oriented programme, helping communities at risk of disasters to better prepare themselves by undertaking training, establishing or improving local early warning systems and contingency planning. Even though there is a wide agreement on the need for DRR, Otto and Weingärtner (2013: 28) note that concept is commonly applied in the context of natural disasters only and not in conflict. Further such programs, even though often declared as priority, still receive very limited financial support, including from the EU (European Commission, 2009).
As evident from the overview of instruments, EU has not established specific instruments or budget lines for LRRD, while established ones are faced with numerous challenges regarding LRRD. Even results of the survey (Morazan et al., 2012) among humanitarian organization show that extremely high proportion (86% or more) of organizations are convinced that there is a funding gap in the grey zone between relief and development, disagree that EU financial instruments are flexible enough to ensure effective transition/linkage, agree that fragmented instruments and EU structures make
to minimise vulnerabilities, hazards and the unfolding of disaster impacts throughout a society, in the broad context of sustainable development (RedR UK, 2013: 12).
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it difficult to apply for and receive adequate funding and think the EU should make tangible changes to their financial instruments.
However, there are various opportunities for making a linkage within the instruments for humanitarian aid, development cooperation and stability. On the chapter of instruments we are concluding that EU should particularly pay more attention to ensure greater flexibility of its (financing) instruments, especially in terms of time and content, which will enable the integration of humanitarian and development work. And taking into account the frequency of different crisis, we believe the funding for LRRD must increase.
Concluding remarks
Regarding the coordination and instruments for linking humanitarian aid and development cooperation, we are concluding that EU has made progress in past years, however margin for manoeuvre remains significant.
EU has proved its commitment to LRRD in a number of documents, partly with conceptual and institutional developments and some good field experiences. However, the coordination between DG ECHO and DG DEVCO is still limited to the level of consultation, weak cooperation, and informal and occasional collaboration. The lack of interaction can be primarily attributed to the diverse nature of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. The directorates often strictly follow their different principles, objectives and
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procedures, which to a large extent constitute an obstacle for the integration of humanitarian aid and development. Humanitarian aid is following humanitarian principles, often enabling cooperation with governments and often focusing only on short-term assistance to save lives and to prevent and relieve human suffering. While development cooperation underlines the close cooperation with the governments of recipient countries, and focuses on poverty reduction and long-term measures. We believe the lack of coordination can also be a result of certain expectations of different actors such as the media, the public, donors, local governments, etc. regarding the mandates of humanitarian aid and development cooperation. In this sense the humanitarian aid is still primarily seen as the aid that saves lives and provides emergency assistance. Therefore there can be consequent lack of incentives for humanitarian actors to think about the challenges being beyond their core responsibilities. We think that also financial aspect is contributing to such situation. Humanitarian aid is often responding to media high-profile disasters and is able to achieve visible results in shorter period in comparison to development cooperation, and is therefore able to mobilize greater amount of (financial) resources. Even former Commissioner Georgieva (2013) admitted that it is much easier to raise money for major emergencies rather than to strengthen the resilience, since "preparedness is the dog that does not bark". Therefore we believe that all relevant actors need to ensure that even the dog does not bark, is heard loud and clear.
As presented in the paper, the division between the sectors is also evident from the institutional perspective. DG ECHO is responsible for the area of humanitarian aid (and civil protection), while development cooperation is
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under the jurisdiction of DG DEVCO and EEAS. As we have seen, coordination is not only limited due to conceptual differences but also due to very different procedures and practices of directorates. Coordination is also difficult due to established EC instruments that have certain potentials for LRRD, but also time and content restrictions. In addition, LRRD often receives limited and untimely, unpredictable and inflexible financial support.
As paper explains the relevance of LRRD, and since humanitarian aid and development cooperation are often carried out at the same time on the same place, it is crucial that the directorates really put emphasize on strengthening mutual relationships and work closely together to ensure the success of LRRD. We think that first of all humanitarian and development donors and their partners should really change their mentality regarding LRRD and their coordination. Further we believe humanitarian and development actors should reach a wider exchange of information, knowledge and experience, for example through the inter-departmental database which would include information on situation on the ground, threats, needs, etc., ensure exchange of good practices, develop and implement joint trainings and other measures to strengthen the coordination etc. In this sense we also suggest to activate already existing structures for enhancing LRRD, such as TISG. We are also convinced that LRRD should be included in most programs for developing countries, especially for countries facing complex crises and countries that are prone to natural disasters. EC should also finance crisis preparedness, prevention and rehabilitation measures to a greater extent. And from the field point of view, humanitarian actors should definitely take greater consideration of presence and with that connected advantages of
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development actors in the field, while development actors should build on the good results of humanitarian aid in cases where rehabilitation and development programs are followed by emergency assistance. Mutual coordination seems significant also in terms of harmonization of aid standards. In this sense we would like to complete our paper with thoughts of Djordjevic (2013) - it is crucial mostly for humanitarian actors, as well as development ones, to follow the principle of "building back better, safer and fairer".
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