The European Commission has the financial responsibility of the implementation of European Union funds. As such the European Commission participates in all decision making process of the EDULINK Programme and executes the payments (“paying agent�?).
The EU Contracting Authority of the Project is:
African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP Group), Brussels (Belgium).
The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) is an organisation created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975. It is composed of 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states, with all of them, save Cuba, signatories to the Cotonou Agreement, also known as the "ACP-EC Partnership Agreement" which binds them to the European Union. There are 48 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, 16 from the Caribbean and 15 from the Pacific.
The ACP Group´s main objectives are:
- sustainable development of its Member-States and their gradual integration into the global economy, which entails making poverty reduction a matter of priority and establishing a new, fairer, and more equitable world order;
- coordination of the activities of the ACP Group in the framework of the implementation of ACP-EC Partnership Agreements;
- consolidation of unity and solidarity among ACP States, as well as understanding among their peoples;
- establishment and consolidation of peace and stability in a free and democratic society.