Ms Ana Paula Lopes Fernandes:

I was talking specifically about the idea of having a ranking based on that and not on the results. In the peer review we must also assess the results. I was saying that if there are only two countries working, for instance, on Guinea-Bissau how can one rank them vis-à-viscountries such as Mozambique where 19 countries work. It is a completely different setting if one is working on fragility or on a country that has a different consistency for development, even in education. For ranking purposes, one is interested in the support for the millennium development goals, MDGs. That involves targets. We work more on targets and whether the country is performing vis-à-visthose targets. We have commitments on tying. Are we performing on the commitments that we have agreed on tying? There is a ranking there. We have commitments on LDCs, for example, how much of our aid should go to LDCs vis-à-visthe total amount of aid. Are we performing there and where are we ranking there? We have particular rankings for particular international agreements to which we have subscribed as a community of donors, as governments, broadly speaking. When we make these commitments we have rankings. There is data from the OECD that can be assessed because it is public and transparent. The OECD is very clear on that type of recommendation. It might be difficult to have a ranking based on the general performance of the donor.
We have commitments and rankings on tying and many recommendations. That is part of what we assess also in peer reviews. We consider the overall importance that the government gives to human rights, in cross-cutting issues in its development policies.

On the question about the way we are or are not following statistics, I happen to also be the facilitator of the working party on statistics, which is the body in the Development Assistance Committee, DAC, that is responsible for managing statistics. We have rules that were agreed between the European countries and the EU to avoid double counting. We do not have double counting in statistics in terms of reporting what each donor is doing under the EU framework and what that donor is doing as an individual, bilateral donor. The contributions for the EU are also assessed against these principles and recommendations, as I said, so they are part of the whole picture, as the EU, and then we, as the EU governments, have agreements with them. When we discuss the revision of the European Development Fund, for example, we may say what we would like the European Development Fund to do.

We can always improve the accountability system but I believe that is a discussion we will probably have to have in Brussels, among the EU members. It does not really relate to the purpose of the discussions we have in the Development Assistance Committee, where we also have other members like the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. We are going a little beyond the European constituency there in that we have five more members joining this year and we also have an outreach strategy that includes Mexico, Chile and Turkey, as OECD members. Therefore, we are going a little beyond Europe and the EU is just a part of that. However, we are very careful to avoid double counting and to assess different issues in terms of the overall development statistics. I hope I have answered the questions.