The global objective of this assignment was to support the Democratic Republic of Congo in setting the scales of remuneration applicable to the management of cooperation with the European Union. The European Union and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed a National Indicative Program of Cooperation of EUR 620 million over the period 2014-2020 financed by the European Development Fund (EDF).
The latter provides support of 8 million Euros to the National Authorising Officer, reserved to support degressively the operation of COFED (support unit for the National Authorising Officer of the European Development Fund) within the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ministry of Finance. The COFED consists of public service staff and contract agents whose wages and bonuses are a big part of European Financial Support. The financial support to COFED has been provided on a regular basis and by means of a program estimate, in accordance with Article 24 of Annex IV of the Cotonou Agreement, which must comply with specific procedures of the Financial Regulation relating to the EDF. With regard to the implementation of three previous program estimates, and in particular to the question of the limitation of premiums, the European Commission has conditioned the approval of a new support to COFED, in the form of a grant, governed by the provisions of the PRAG (Practical Guide to Contract Procedures for EU External Actions) in force.
According to this shift, the specific objective of this project was to improve human resource management (HRM) efficiency by analysing the level of salaries, bonuses and other benefits granted by the European Union to officials or assimilated/affected staff, as well as contractual agents made available or recruited by the Support Unit to the EDF Deputy National Authorising Officer (COFED) vis-à-vis the salaries and/or salary scales prevailing on the national labour market for similar tasks (particularly in terms of financial responsibility), borne by the technical and financial partners (TFP).

• Collected information regarding the rates applicable to public service employees in terms of remuneration and other benefits
• Made an inventory of laws or regulations regarding remuneration, in terms of type of contract, duration, compensation, retirement and bonuses
• Collected data on staff assigned to COFED and funded -fully or partially- by the EU, and made a list of the job descriptions and tasks
• Collected information from the EUD on the scales and other benefits applicable to locally recruited staff
• Collected data from public institutions to compare salary scales and other benefits
• Collected statistics on remuneration in the private sector for staff categories comparable to COFED staff, and any recommendations or guidelines in terms of remuneration and other benefits for locally recruited staff
• Consulted technical and financial partners (WB, UN, AFD, GIZ, DFID) and collected salary scales applicable to national agents
• Elaborated a salary scale for tasks and profiles comparable to those existing at COFED.