IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS

The list of Implementing Partners included in the Single Form must give a comprehensive picture to DG ECHO on how the Action will be implemented. The list of Implementing Partners to include will depend on the level of their involvement in the Action and the budget managed. For example, in a consortium where each FPA member is also working with several local Implementing Partners, the lead organisation may decide to report in the Single Form the other members of the consortium and those local Implementing Partners which are in charge of managing a significant part of the budget /activities. Furthermore, it is also advisable to include those local Implementing Partners, which will be the final recipients of a donation. 

Partners need to sign a Memorandum of Understanding or equivalent agreement with each Implementing Partner and have to exercise effective control over them. Under these conditions, it is not mandatory that all local Implementing Partners are listed in the Single Form. When deciding whether to indicate these in the Single Form, partners should consider the need to ensure transparency towards ECHO, the share of the Action's budget the IPs manage, the level of the involvement of the IPs in the Action and the type of the Action. 

Depreciation or rental costs for the use of durable equipment may be charged to the ECHO Action in proportion to its actual use as long as the rules on eligibility in Article 10.2 (a) are observed. This possibility applies regardless of who owns the durable equipment as long as it was necessary for use in the ECHO funded Action and the normal financial safeguards were ensured. 

Where the durable equipment belongs to an Implementing Partner who is not an FPA Signatory itself that Implementing Partners should use a rental/depreciation rate and methodology which is at least comparable or consistent with that (if any) used by the Partner for durable equipment in that Action. This is to avoid having dramatically different rental/depreciation rates applied in the same Action which would be hard to reconcile or justify. 

The depreciation/rental costs must be reflected in the accounting system in a consistent and verifiable way.

An important exception to this is if the durable equipment was bought using ECHO Funding. In cases where ECHO has already covered or contributed to the purchase cost of a piece of durable equipment the related depreciation or rental costs can never be charged to a future ECHO funded Action - to do so would be contrary to normal financial safeguards and would constitute double funding. 
In cases where it is not possible to charge rent/depreciation to an ECHO funded Action it may still possible to charge the maintenance and running costs of that durable equipment to the Action's budget.

Pursuant to Article 10.3 d)  of the general conditions, the threshold for low value allowance equipment is Euro 15 000 regardless of the Action's budget or the number of the  Consortium members (DIPECHO of Euro 400.000,00 or other ECHO Action of Euro 12.000.000,00).