Unforeseeable and exceptional situations may arise that prevent the Organisation from fulfilling certain contractual obligations under a DG ECHO-funded Action. If these (or other) reasons prevent the Organisation from performing its agreed tasks and duties, it is important to immediately inform by email the Desk Officer to assess the situation and to agree upon any appropriate procedural follow-up.

For DG ECHO, Force Majeure is any situation or event that:

• prevents the Organisation from fulfilling its obligations under the Agreement with DG ECHO;
• is unforeseeable and exceptional, beyond the Organisation’s control,
• is not due to the error or negligence of the Organisation (including its staff and others it selected to implement the Action e.g., Implementing Partners, service providers, locally engaged staff, contractors etc.), and
• is inevitable, despite the Organisation exercising all due diligence.
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A party prevented by force majeure from fulfilling its obligations under the Agreement cannot be considered in breach of them.

• Situations in which the performance of an obligation has simply become more difficult for reasons different to those mentioned above.
• Situations which occurred due to neglect (e.g. loss of supporting documents due to insufficient archiving practices).
• Default of service, defect in equipment or material, delays in making them available (e.g. delays in custom services, container lost in the harbour).

Cases of possible force majeure must be reported quickly (by email) to the desk officer at DG ECHO, to assess if the force majeure should be invoked, and to agree upon any appropriate procedural follow-up.

Where the Organisation  is prevented from fulfilling important contractual obligations, it may report the situation using the Force Majeure Reporting Form  available in the Reference Documents section of this website. The Desk Officer will review the information provided and may require further information / documentation to assess the situation.

This form may be submitted as a supporting document when requesting a suspension of field activities due to exceptional circumstances.

After analysing the situation, DG ECHO will guide the Organisation on the appropriate follow-up. 

If DG ECHO acknowledges the existence of force majeure, the Organisation will not be held liable for the identified contractual obligations that it could not fulfil because of that force majeure event. The information shared should be carefully kept in the Action file for the purposes of any possible ex post audit.

For operational situations where force majeure, or other operational obstacles, prevent the continued implementation of activities in the field, the Organisation can agree with DG ECHO on a suspension,  a reduction of the activities in the field or termination of the Agreement  when the Action can no longer be effectively or appropriately performed.