The answer from the European Commission about our request for information: the announced contract is not yet signed

I received yesterday an email from Mr Thomas Kirchner (see below the content). He explains that "this contract does not yet exist. It is currently under preparation and foreseen to be signed before the end of this year." Therefore there are no documents available. I remain interested in a detailed breakdown of the budget as what was provided raised a certain number of questions that have not been answered. As for an eventual commitment to detailed communication and transparency, the eventual requirements seem limited but one should wait until one can see the actual contract. Mr Kirchner concludes: "Within EuropeAid, Unit D4 (Education, Health, Research and Culture) is in charge of this contract with the WHO and will be available to assist you should you require further clarifications. The Head of Unit responsible is Elisabeth Feret."

 

Dear Mr Boucher,

  

Thank you for your email requesting access to documents under Regulation No. 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.

  

Concerning the contract between the European Commission (EC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) on supporting the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) that you have requested access to please note that this contract does not yet exist. It is currently under preparation and foreseen to be signed before the end of this year.

  

Given that the implementation period for this contract has not yet commenced, there are - apart from the 2011 Annual Action Programme for Investing in People and the related Action Fiche (of which you appear to be in possession already) - no other documents currently available relating to the implementation of the (future) contract concerned.

  

As regards your other questions, please find below our answers:

  

(i) The reference DCI-SANTE/2011/261-053 refers to the number assigned to the contract (with the WHO) that is currently under preparation.

  

(ii) The EC was not part of the pilot programme you refer to. For more information regarding this pilot phase you may wish to contact the WHO directly.

  

(iii) As far as the selection of the 30 countries is concerned, it is foreseen that this will be based on specific requests and objective needs identified as per the respective implementation reports by the countries that are Parties to the Convention, as outlined in the Action Fiche. The FCTC Secretariat will ensure for this process to be objective and transparent. The 30 countries to be selected will be from among those that are Party to the Convention and which are eligible for support, i.e. countries eligible under the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI). Priority will be given to low income countries. Funding for the activities (under a joint needs assessment) in the 30 countries will follow uniform criteria and will be based on specific activities subject to achievement of certain indicators required for treaty implementation.

  

(iv) Concerning the rules on administrative costs, I attach for your information a copy of the General Conditions applicable to European Union-financed grant contracts for external actions. In Art. 14.4 you will find a reference to the percentage of allowable administrative overheads, which is generally set at 7% in the Special conditions to the contract (these are administrative and running costs not linked to one particular action and could include a proportional percentage of an organisation's office rental charge, phone bills, electricity, etc.

  

Please note that travel that is necessary for the implementation of the action would fall under the category of direct eligible costs and not administrative overheads. Similarly, in cases where administrative and running costs can be accurately identified and accounted for in the budget as direct eligible costs and backed up with documents that prove that those costs are related to the proposed action only, the applicant may choose to budget such costs as eligible direct costs instead of asking for the overheads percentage.

   

(v) Within EuropeAid, Unit D4 (Education, Health, Research and Culture) is in charge of this contract with the WHO and will be available to assist you should you require further clarifications. The Head of Unit responsible is Elisabeth Feret.

  

(vi) The WHO currently foresees to include a list of Frequently Asked Questions regarding this programme on their website once the implementation of this contract has started. This will be complemented with  information on the results of regional workshops, meetings and other activities that will be made available to the public through the website of the Secretariat of the FCTC.

  

I hope this information will prove useful to you.

  

Best regards,

  

Thomas Kirchner

  

________________________________________

  

   

 

Finance, Contracts and Audit

Directorate for Human and Society Development

EuropeAid

 

 European Commission  

______________________________________________  

  

Address: Rue de la Science 15, 05/53, 1049 Brussels

Tel.: +32-2-29-95562

Email: [email protected]

______________________________________________

 

 

 

 

---

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Philippe Boucher
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 12:59 AM
To: MARTINEZ ALONSO Ana (DEVCO); BLUTEAU Pierrette (DEVCO); [email protected]
Subject: Access to information to EC documents: Request about the grant Supporting the implementation of WHO FCTC and other related documents ( a reminder Monday October 10)

 

This is a reminder of my email of October 5, 2011.

Could you please acknowledge that you have received this request?

Thank you

Philippe Boucher

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Philippe Boucher <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 7:51 AM
Subject: Access to information to EC documents: Request about the grant Supporting the implementation of WHO FCTC and other related documents (Wednesday October 5)
To: [email protected], [email protected]


Hello,

My name is Philippe Boucher. I am a French citizen and I write a blog about tobacco control in Africa.

I realize that maybe you are not the right persons to contact so my apologies and thank you for forwarding my request to the right people.

I read about the grant awarded within the Investing in people program to support the implementation of the WHO FCTC and I would like to have access to EC documents related to it, according to the article 255 of the Treaty and Regulation EC 1049/2001 regarding public access to documents.

The documents I already have accessed (as mentioned in a previous email sent on october 2d, copied below) are one announcement of the grant:

http://ec.europa.eu/health/tobacco/docs/announcement_260911_en.pdf

and a document, 2011 Annual Action program from the Investing in people program that presents the grant in Annex B

http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/documents/aap/2011/af_aap_2011_dci-people.pdf

I am interested to having access to the contract itself and to EC documents concerning its implementation. The Annex B provides a rather short estimated budget and I wonder if there are more detailed budgetary documents.

There is reference to a document DCI-SANTE/2011/261-053: can you tell me what it is and how to access it?

There is a reference on the page 23 (within the Annex B) to a pilot program that would have involved 6 countries (note 35). Was the EC part of this program? Are there documents relative to it?

In a more general way I am interested in knowing about the budget requirements as far as such grants are concerned, like are there standards regarding the administrative costs, the travel and hospitality expenses.

Is there a more detailed document explaining how the 30 countries will be selected, who will make the selection, on what basis, how the the funding will be distributed? The Annex B mentions 27% for "other costs", is there a document explaining what those costs are?

Is it possible to know what persons within the EC are in charge of this project? 

Is there a communication plan to inform the public about its implementation?

Thank you in advance for your concern,

Philippe Boucher

Editor

Tobacco Control In Africa

http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/africa

Copy of email sent on Oct 2d

Dear Europe Aid,

You'll find below the article I posted on the Tobacco Control in Africa blog.

I mention a few questions and some concern I have about the recent grant awarded to FCTC.

I have underlined them and I would appreciate if you can provide some clarification.

Thank you in advance

Philippe Boucher

Looking at the recent grant awarded by the European Commission to support the implementation of FCTC in 'lower income countries"

The European Union and the EU countries fund about half of the $9 million FCTC Secretariat budget. The Commission recently awarded WHO-FCTC a complementary grant of Euros 5.2 million. If you want to look at the details of this grant you have to go to this pdf document and scroll down to page 7 to click on the Annex B link and scroll down again. Since I am curious about how funds are allocated I did all those tedious moves. Below are some of my comments.

First, one can regret that the access to the relevant information is not easier. Requiring people to scroll down various pdf documents is not the easiest way to share information. One learns on page 23 that there had been a pilot project and that this new grant is a "scaling up" of the pilot phase. The note (35) tells us that there were 7 pilot countries, including two in Africa, Ghana and Lesotho. Apparently the countries were chosen because their governments had showed a specific interest and commitment in implementing the FCTC. One can wonder now about the choice of Ghana considering the apparent reluctance of its government to move ahed with tobacco control regulations.

The new phase should involve about 30 countries, selected through a process I am unable to explain. If I understand well, the main stakeholders will be national governements while the civil society will be asked to promote transparency and an objective approach to assessing the implementation (p. 28). I did not see any specific requirements for transparency so they could only be lip service to the concept.

On page 29 we find the provisional budget breakdown:

42% for human resources (with 71% going for FCTC staff? if I understand correctly?)

15% for travel (that would be Euros 780K)

9% for local equipment

27% for other costs (what are "other costs"?

7% for administrative costs (how are those different from the staff? would that mean the administrative costs of the project are about 49% or more since we have no idea what the 27% other costs are?

The next section is devoted to 'Performance and monitoring" but it looks mostly like lip service with no clear commitment to any type of independent evaluation. The evaluation and audit will be 'jointly agreed by the beneficiary parties", will they be made public? How about the evaluation of the pilot phase? Is it available?

The same goes for the "Communication and visibility" section despite the affirmation that "there will be an emphasis on communication and visibility issues" and that "funds should be set aside for communication". How many blogs and/or facebook pages will be eventually created and regularly provided with significant content?

If you have questions of your own you can contact:[email protected]

Do I have any suggestions? What about implementing the ten points of my Transparency Scorecard?