Guidance document on monitoring and evaluation – European Regional Development Fund and Cohesion Fund

Summary:

Cohesion policy is a visible expression of solidarity across the European Union and represents a very substantial part of the budget of the European Union. Citizens expect to know what has been achieved with public money and want to be sure that we run the best policy. Monitoring and evaluation have a role to play to meet such expectations.

This document provides concise guidance for programmes that cover a wide variety of themes and contexts. We believe that this concise approach is the right one, given the rich experience that Member States and Commission have accumulated in the past years. The paper sets out some important changes in the understanding and organisation of monitoring and evaluation. The most important one is the emphasis on a clearer articulation of the policy objectives. This is key to implement a results oriented policy and moving away from an excessive focus on the absorption of funding. The second major concern is the better specification of differences in tasks between
monitoring and evaluation. It sets out more clearly the different types of evaluation and calls for more methodological rigour in capturing the effects of our interventions.

• Alternative Source 1
• Alternative Source 2