Detailed description of project Back
The overall objective of the study is to support DG NEAR and IPA II beneficiaries in strengthening the monitoring and reporting systems to track the performance of IPA II assistance, while enhancing the transparency and visibility of IPA II funds, and providing support for related information and communication activities targeting stakeholder audiences in the EU Member States and a wider public.
The specific objectives are threefold:
- To help designing and streamlining the monitoring and reporting system in the context of IPA II assistance by assessing the state of play and legal requirements and by providing recommendations;
- To assess the limits of the evaluability and the scope of the Mid-Term Review to be carried out in 2017, having regard to the regulatory requirements, the institutional setting of the new financial instrument(s) and the monitoring of the degree of realisation of activities and results by that time and the monitoring and reporting system put in place;
- To provide recommendations on how to ensure sufficient visibility of the IPA II performance, including ways to enhance transparency and improve compliance with the International Aid Transparency Standards, as well as ways to strengthen the relevance, quality and impact of the related information and communication activities.
The results of the study will be used to:
- Define detailed procedures for monitoring and reporting of IPA II (who is doing what, when and how), including adjust existing IT tools (MIS) or designing new ones to support an efficient reporting system, in compliance with the legal basis, to be used at national and EC levels;
- Undertake the Mid-term review of IPA II in 2017 through an” evaluability” assessment which calls for the early review of a proposed activity in order to ascertain whether its objectives are adequately defined and its results verifiable;
- Increase transparency (informing Member States, other institutions and stakeholders and, indirectly, the wider public in the EU Member States) of DG NEAR efforts in implementation of IPA II assistance including what results/impacts were delivered (both in qualitative and quantitative terms).
Type of services provided
- Assessment and recommendations regarding the way in which the structure and the articulation of DG NEAR’s monitoring and reporting system could be streamlined (procedures for data collection and consolidation, organisation of the information flows among IPA II beneficiaries, EU Delegations and EC headquarters; consistency between reporting references so as to avoid task duplication; coherent sequencing of reporting milestones, in particular better connection in terms of timelines between IPA II specific and internal EC/NEAR reports);
- Perform evaluability assessment checks whether IPA II programmes can be evaluated (as per OECD-DAC Quality Standards for Development Evaluation (2011);
- Assessment of how IPA II programming and planning documents take into account the visibility requirements and the need for information and communication activities and whether there are adequate resources allocated for the implementation of visibility requirements and information and communication activities;
- Assessment of how the IPA II reporting documents (IPA II beneficiaries’ reports, IPA reports, DG’s internal reports, etc) address the visibility requirements and the implemented information and communication activities;
- Recommendations on further improvements and/or additional innovative approaches to communicate pre-accession assistance and the objectives and results of the IPA II and IPA-funded activities, also looking at the different aid modalities used.
The study is undertaken by a team of 3 experts. PROMAN provides the services of the Team leader and the Senior Expert.
