The Case of the European Union

Summaries The paper provides an overview of the recent EU experience in BOP Support programmes. The author considers the evaluations carried out by the EU, discussing both the findings and the methodological issues related to these works. The evaluations have assessed the relevance, impact, effectiveness and efficiency of the global reform processes and EU support in the respective countries. Some important issues raised by these evaluations are: the need for greater participation, and leadership of the EU in the policy dialogue, programme preparation and monitoring; the need to improve budget management and accountancy procedures in state and parastatal bodies; and the encouragement of more effective targeting mechanisms, by greater tying of EU support to performance improvements in the priority sectors so that actual expenditures in these areas are ensured. The paper discusses the EU’s experience in applying the Logical Framework to programme aid. The log frame helps the evaluator a great deal in understanding the programme’s structure and consistency, i.e. how it was prepared and the coherence between objectives and means. It offers little help however with respect to the evaluation methodology, which has to find the most appropriate ways to deal with each one of the main issues: relevance, impact, effectiveness and efficiency of any particular BOP support programme. Both in the practical work at country level and in the evaluation guidelines under preparation by the Commission, the possible application and usefulness of the Logical Framework approach has not been considered a methodology, but rather a useful tool making explicit all the components of a programme: its development goals, its specific objectives and target beneficiaries, its detailed activities and the accompanying measures.