ODA eligibility database

Snowdrop is an aerial delivery procedure designed to airdrop food to civilian populations in remote and otherwise inaccessible areas of a country. This procedure does not pose a risk to those on the ground and does not require any additional presence on site for preparing or marking the drop zone. The execution of snowdrop directly benefits populations in need; however, enabling this technique requires dedicated training and equipment. The training of the snowdrop procedure is mandatory prior to its execution.

The main objective of the project is to provide specialised training to Belgian military personnel on the snowdrop procedure. While airdrop provisions will mainly contain nutrition; it may be possible to broaden the technique to include the provision of medication.

This training of Belgian military personnel in order to maintain a level of expertise, will enable the safe execution of the snowdrop procedure. By having dedicated personnel (aircrews and handling teams) trained, the international community will be better prepared to provide essential humanitarian assistance to remote areas. In doing so, the military may safeguard the civilian population in need from starvation.

This activity is deemed not ODA-eligible. The training of provider country military is excluded from ODA and so are the costs for providing that training activity. The deployment of provider country military used to perform aerial delivery procedures in recipient countries, in order to deliver development services and humanitarian aid, would be ODA-eligible, but additional costs only (paragraph 97). Furthermore, training of partner country military in performing the aerial delivery procedures would qualify as training in humanitarian response and disaster relief preparedness, which is one of the listed eligible training areas in the Reporting Directives on partner country military. That activity could hence be ODA-eligible provided the ‘last resort’ principle is met (paragraph 97).