According to a press release to West Nile Press Online, the objectives of the fund are too broad to efficiently steer action across the African regions, and the European Commission has encountered difficulties in measuring the extent to which the fund has achieved.
The auditors also found weaknesses in its implementation and note that projects face similar delays to traditional development aid.
The auditors assessed whether the fund is well designed and implemented. They examined projects in Niger and Libya – the countries with largest fund allocations in their respective regions.
Bettina Jakobsen, the Member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report, said the EUTF for Africa is a special emergency tool to deal with migration.
The fund's objectives were kept as broad as possible, so that most actions would be eligible for funding. While this meant that the fund could adapt its support to suit different and changing situations, it was less useful in steering action across the regions and for measuring impact.
The Commission did not comprehensively analyse and quantify needs, specify which crises the fund was meant to address, or define the means at its disposal, which limits its ability to demonstrate that the right priorities have been identified and that actions approved are the most relevant to address them. In addition, the pooling of donor resources and capacities is not yet sufficiently effective.
The fund launched projects more quickly than traditional development aid and, overall, managed to accelerate contract signatures and advance payments, although greater speed could have been expected of an emergency tool.
The auditors noted a pattern of delays in projects related to areas such as security and border management.
With €3.7 billion of EU funding at stake, being able to measure performance is an important aspect of accountability, the auditors say.
The auditors said there was need to improve the quality of the objectives, revise the project selection procedures, and take measures to speed up implementation and improve monitoring.