EU states urged to pool aid policies

BRUSSELS, Feb 28 (Reuters) The European Union's executive is to urge the bloc's 27 countries today to end fragmentation and duplication of international aid projects by agreeing to coordinate, a draft proposal shows.

OECD figures show EU countries provided about billion of aid in 2005, twice as much as the United States. The European Commission brought an additional 9.4 billion dollars.

''Excessive fragmentation of development assistance has led to dispersion, duplication and even contradiction in aid activities, reducing potential impact,'' the draft proposal says.

The European Commission wants each EU state to focus on two areas in each country it helps, re-allocating remaining money to projects led by other donors or grants for the countries.

It says EU states should coordinate on which countries they help, to make sure there is no duplication and that all countries in need of aid are remembered.

''Too many donors are concentrating on the same countries and the same sector,'' the draft says, pointing to Mozambique where more than 25 donors are fighting AIDS and Somalia and the Central African Republic are left almost to themselves.

''Developing countries can often hardly cope with the many missions, the unnecessary administrative costs, the overlaps and duplication,'' the draft proposal says.

REUTERS PDM KP1439