Synthesis Report - European Commission - Europa

Synthesis Report Ex-post Evaluation of the ERDF 2000-2006
One point in favour is the fact that gender equality bodies were set up in a number of regions as
a specific response to its inclusion and there is piecemeal evidence that it led to authorities
across the EU paying more attention to the issue, if perhaps in limited ways. At the same time, it
is arguable that the authorities which took the issue seriously and introduced specific
arrangements to integrate it into the policy-making machinery did so because they regarded it as
an important objective in their region or country. Those that did not do so attached relatively low
priority to it, despite the guideline, and in many cases did the minimum amount to comply with
the regulation. Simply including an issue a horizontal priority, therefore, does not ensure that it
actually has a significant effect on policy unless it is perceived as being important,, in which case
action would probably be taken irrespective of whether it is a horizontal priority or not.
As regards demographic change, there is little evidence at all that the issues concerned entered
the policy agenda at regional or local level over the period. Although there are signs of increasing
awareness of the potential importance of the issues, no specific examples were found of
development policy been modified in response to them.
3.10 CONTRIBUTION OF THE MANAGEMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION SYSTEM TO DELIVERING
EFFECTIVE POLICIES
A major element of the evaluation was the examination of management and implementation
systems for the delivery of cohesion policy. A particular focus was on the EU10 countries, given
that this was their first experience of carrying out cohesion policy programmes. Establishing
appropriate systems for doing this, which would provide the basis for designing and
implementing regional development strategies in future programming periods as well as in 2000-
2006, was as much an objective as the achievement of significant results from the programmes
undertaken themselves. Specific findings in relation to individual EU10 Member States are
presented in Chapter 4 below. Here the concern is to review the evidence from the evaluation of
management and implementation systems on the performance of the policy in different
intervention areas. The evaluation did not examine audit processes which should be borne in
mind when reading what follows.
A major conclusion of the evaluation was that, in many cases, insufficient attention was paid in
delivering programmes to strategic management issues - i.e. the entire process of strategic
programme design, project selection, monitoring, evaluation, reporting, financial management
and partnership. This was case in both the EU10 (where this was understandable given the
newness of the processes involved) and the EU15.
For the EU15 countries, implementing their second, third or fourth programmes, there was
evidence of positive changes:
• in the quality of strategic planning, by improving the focus, coherence and credibility of
strategies, involving more detailed analysis of development needs, greater consultation
with partners and stronger ex ante evaluation;
• in the extent of partnership, including at local level;
• in the extent and quality of evaluation, which in several cases went beyond the regulatory
requirements.
So far as monitoring is concerned, the conclusions of the evaluation were not so positive for both
the EU10 and the EU15, with over-complex and inflexible indicator systems and associated data
inconsistencies. This made it difficult in this evaluation to aggregate data across countries and to
assess performance on the basis of the achievement of targets.
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