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European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR)

Monitoring and Evaluation

These activities provide the Commission with hard evidence about how actions (projects/programmes) are implemented, to improve their design, efficiency and accountability.

Monitoring

Monitoring uses systematic collection of data on specified indicators to provide the management and the main stakeholders of an on-going intervention with indications of the extent of progress and achievement of objectives and progress in the use of allocated funds (OECD).

It can be internal (performed by Commission staff or implementing partners, such as agency’s staff, government’s personnel, other donors, non-state actors (private sector companies, NGOs, etc.)) or external (Results Oriented Monitoring).

Internal monitoring includes:

  • analysing action's reporting documents & data
  • attending action's steeringcommittee meetings & reviews of budget support operations
  • meetings/contacts with the action's team, beneficiaries, authorities, other stakeholders
  • on the spot checks

External monitoring (ROM)

This provides an independent view and focuses on problematic actions pinpointed by operational managers in their annual risk assessment exercise. It consists of a quick review, based on standard criteria, designed to give a brief snapshot of the quality of a project/programme and recommendations for EUDs/HQ services on how to improve it.

More on external monitoring

Evaluation

Systematic and objective assessment of on-going or completed interventions (actions/policies), their design, implementation and resultsaccording to the following criteria: relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, impact, coherence and EU added-value.

It assesses how well a specific measure has worked (or is working) and whether it is still justified or should be changed.

More on evaluation

Evaluation plan

Evaluations are planned on a multi-annual basis. DG NEAR updates this plan every year.

Strategic evaluations

These are launched by DG NEAR's Thematic Support, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit. They assess EU support, over a significant time period, looking at specific sectors/themes, country support, aid modalities, financial instruments. They help understand why, in a specific context, the policy dialogue and financial assistance have been successful or not, and provide recommendations to decision-makers for the future programming and implementation.

To ensure objectivity, DG NEAR's Thematic Support, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit usually contracts independent experts and supervises their work (with the help of a steering committee), to ensure that they apply a robust methodology in a transparent way and deliver high quality products.

Actions (project/programmes) evaluations

These are launched by the Delegation or the HQ operational unit in charge of the action and provide an in-depth understanding of the action's performance and lessons learned for the future.

Strategic evaluations – 2006 - 2024

Key documents