Programme: EU Aid Volunteers

The European Commission’s Directorate-General Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (DG ECHO) does not intervene directly on the ground. The implementation of humanitarian aid actions is done by humanitarian organisations, such as humanitarian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), with which DG ECHO enters into a partnership. 

Non-governmental organizations eligible for Community financing for the implementation of operations under this Regulation must meet the following criteria:

• be non-profit-making autonomous organizations in a Member State of the Community under the laws in force in that Member State;
• have their main headquarters in a Member State of the Community or in the third countries in receipt of Community aid. This headquarters must be the effective decision-making centre for all operations financed under this Regulation. Exceptionally, the headquarters may be in a third donor country.

When determining a non-governmental organization's suitability for Community funding, account shall be taken of the following factors:

• its administrative and financial management capacities;
• its technical and logistical capacity in relation to the planned operation;
• its experience in the field of humanitarian aid;
• the results of previous operations carried out by the organization concerned, and in particular those financed by the Community;
•  its readiness to take part, if need be, in the coordination system set up for a humanitarian operation;
• its ability and readiness to work with humanitarian agencies and the basic communities in the third countries concerned;
• its impartiality in the implementation of humanitarian aid;
• where appropriate, its previous experience in the third country involved in the humanitarian operation concerned.

Applications for the signature of the FPA must be made online through the electronic exchange system APPEL

Several step application:

1. Identification and pre-selection

In the first phase of application, the applicant needs to take the following steps:

• Register in APPEL through the European Commission Authentication Service,
• Choose the language of the application (English or French),
• Choose the type of the application (niche or non-niche, whereby niche organisations provide support and capacity-building activities necessary for the implementation of a programme or an action),
• Fill out an identification from (name, address etc.), and
• Answer a set of pre-selection questions to check if it complies with the minimum eligibility and suitability criteria. If the outcome of the pre-selection is positive, the applicant will be able to proceed to the detailed questionnaire and to complete the application.

1. Full Application

The second phase of the application process consists of the completion of a detailed questionnaire, in order to check the compliance of the applicant organisation with the eligibility and suitability criteria. During this phase, the applicant organisation will be requested to submit supporting documents.

ECHO-CP-P&P@ec.europa.eu