An external actor is a party that is unrelated to the DG ECHO (co)partner(s) or implementing partners as described in the single form. External actors may include any governmental, local or community authorities, armed groups, militants, looters, etc.

Actors intervening in the project’s implementation but over whom the partner does not have control and oversight are also considered ‘external actors’. These include, for example, local authorities that play a pre-defined role in an action’s implementation (e.g. for aid distribution).

Aid diversion takes place most commonly:

• During transport/distribution/storage of aid – on the road to/from a warehouse or at/to the intended location or during the distribution process.

• Payment for access to aid resources or beneficiaries – the flow of aid might be blocked by request for bribes or kickbacks made to partner’s staff, suppliers, traders, and transporters in return for access to the people in need, or to the resources that the partner needs (e.g., goods in customs warehouse).

• Artificial taxes, charges, exchange rates, mark-ups might also consist in aid diversion. Caution must be used by partners they face new or arbitrary costs to implement humanitarian aid. In particular, taxes and charges targeted only towards the humanitarian or international aid community (e.g. applied only to NGO workers or transactions in certain currencies) should be assessed for reasonability in terms of financial impact on the action.

Fraud and Irregularities

Aid diversion is different from fraud. The definition of fraud can be found in Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2017/1371 and Article 1 of the Convention on the protection of the European Communities’ financial interests.

Where aid is prevented from reaching its intended beneficiaries due to the action or inaction of the DG ECHO’s partner, its staff or its implementing partner(s), then the incident could rather be a fraud matter and should be reported immediately to DG ECHO by email to echo-reportfraud@ec.europa.eu by filling in the Fraud Allegation Reporting Form. For more information, visit the Fraud and Irregularities page.

In case of doubts in the qualification (aid diversion or fraud), please refer the case to echo-reportfraud@ec.europa.eu.

Under-performance or bad implementation

Where an action is not implemented as agreed or is implemented poorly or late, the result may also be that the DG ECHO-funded assistance does not reach the action’s intended beneficiaries or activities. This is not, however, considered as aid diversion as there is no external actor benefitting from the diverted aid. In such cases DG ECHO may reduce its grants or contribution in proportion to the under-performance or non-compliance and may recover costs unduly paid.

Aid redirected by DG ECHO partner for operational reasons

The decision may be taken by the partner to re-distribute the aid to another beneficiary group/location than the initially targeted group due to access impediments (including administrative or security obstacles). The decision should be discussed in advance with DG ECHO but do not constitute aid diversion.

Aid redirected after the partners’ intervention

Aid diversion is relevant when aid is taken, stolen or damaged by actor/s external to the DG ECHO Partner, its staff, or its implementing partner(s) before or during the time that it reaches its intended beneficiaries, or the planned activities (e.g. distribution) are implemented.

Aid might be redirected after it has reached the intended beneficiaries for different reasons. In most cases, if contractual obligations have been honoured (i.e. the action has been implemented as described in the Single Form), partners cannot be held accountable as it occurred after their intervention. Should it become systemic, we encourage partners to inform DG ECHO as operations might need to be redesigned and the reputational risks be addressed.

Damaged, lost or wasted aid

Damage, loss and waste of aid resulting in the impossibility of using that aid for its intended purpose or for any other purpose is not considered as aid diversion. If this happened because of a force majeure event, your organisation can request the eligibility of costs though the force majeure procedure. 

If, however, aid was intentionally damaged by external actor so that it could not reach its intended beneficiaries, it may qualify as aid diversion even if nobody ‘benefited’ from this aid.