4.7.1.3. Step 3: indicative financial contributions to Team Europe Initiatives
As a starting point in the process, TEI mappings have been elaborated for most TEIs in order to get a very indicative overview on TEI financial contributions. Some TEI participant groups used the template survey provided in the TEI methodological guidance (see Annex 4), to gather this information from each TEI member for what is essentially a detailed excel list of all multiannual TEI member contributions (listed by TEI member) to programmes which are ‘ongoing’ – starting, ending or planned to start – in 2021-202788, and which are seen as contributing to achieving the TEI objectives.
A financial contribution consists of any contribution (grant, loan, guarantee, technical assistance (including in kind)) of financial value. The financial contribution must come from the national budget or the balance sheet of the TEI participants (excluding contributions from Member States’ agencies that are in reality EU funds managed through delegated cooperation or contributions funded through core funding of multilateral organisations). In the case of a co-financed project, only the institution’s own share should be stated under its name. Each TEI participant should ensure that all its country institutions (including development agencies, DFIs and Export Credit Agencies - ECAs) have the opportunity to contribute to the mappings, provided that the principle of funding ‘owned’ by the institution is respected.
These mappings are not yet publicly available. TEI financial contributions have also been captured to some extent within the TEI JIL, albeit in less detail.
Each TEI participant should identify and continuously update the TEI participants group on which projects/ activities (ongoing or under preparation) are or could be contributing to the TEI. To be able to add new contributions, the starting reference for planning new development projects should be the TEI JIL: new programmes should be aligned with and reference the agreed joint TEI objectives and results. This will also allow TEI participants to explore future synergetic action and joint financing options.
In Benin, the Netherlands has, within its Food Security and Nutrition portfolio, decided to scale up successful interventions of recent years, like the youth entrepreneurship programme Benibiz (implemented by TechnServe) and the EJASA youth employment programme (implemented by SNV). Both examples contribute to achieving the TEI objectives on ‘sustainable growth and jobs for young people’. The second phases of these programmes were brought to the attention of the EU delegation at the formulation stage in 2022 (this included sharing the evaluations of the first phases and the proposals). The EU delegation was therefore already on board and participating in the reflection process at the planning stage, while the TEI was being kick-started in parallel. For both Benibiz and Ejasa, the EU has committed funding in January 2024. Both programmes are ongoing with the EU co-funding since 2024.
For the decision on which ongoing programmes can be included from a thematic point of view, the TEI members group is free to decide on a set of criteria for the inclusion, in order to ensure consistency between the different TEI components.
When preparing or updating the TEI mapping, care should be taken to avoid double-counting (e.g. between TEI member initiatives that are jointly financed, between different TEIs or between national and regional TEI components). If a programme (component) contributes to various TEIs, amounts should, where possible, be divided up between the TEIs – or the most relevant TEI should be selected.
Financial contributions will clearly change over time as the projects/programmes are implemented and new projects/programmes are designed and budgeted. The indicative financial overview is therefore a living document and can be updated by the TEI management group.
It should also be noted that these mappings are aimed at providing an initial indicative overview of TEI financial contributions that communicates the financial scale and size of individual TEIs to our partners, beneficiaries and the general public (alongside our strategic communication and visibility, which is focused on results and impact). However, the mappings will not be used for aggregate financial tracking and reporting. For the latter, a joint mechanism for tracking the disbursement of financial contributions has been established (see Annex 7), where only disbursements to TEIs (identified with a TEI keyword in development assistance reporting to the OECD-DAC) made from 2021 onward will be officially counted in the centralised aggregate financial TEI tracking. However, the aggregate financial tracking is not expected to provide a centralised financial report on disbursements for each TEI individually. This means that the established indicative excel-mapping described above will still be relevant for external communication about individual TEIs.
⇒ For detailed guidance and information about financial TEI tracking, please see Section 4.13 and Annex 4.4.
Regional and global TEIs can have country-level components if they are not already part of a country TEI (in this case, they would be a part of the country TEI contributing to the achievement of the results of specific pillars of action in the regional TEI either partially or fully, rather than being an individual component). Avoiding double-counting of the financial inputs to the TEIs is necessary and can be done in different optional ways when it comes to mapping the components. TEI participants can agree to only include funding amounts that are not already accounted for under other TEIs. In terms of prioritisation: if already contributing to national TEIs, the amount should be accounted under national TEIs unless it can easily be split into a national and regional amount. If contributing to regional TEIs, the amount should either be split or allocated to the most relevant TEI (in terms of its geographic and thematic scope).
In the case of the six regional LAC TEIs, a special filter has been inserted into the mapping in order to allow TEI-exclusive amounts to be filtered out of all amounts (including those which are already accounted for under other TEIs). In a way, LAC regional TEIs have an overall overview and at the same time safeguard against double-counting. The approach is illustrated below.
