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The EU Better Regulation Guidelines define the overall methodological approach to evaluation across all European Commission services, but the evaluation of EU external actions also makes extensive use of the work of the OECD Development Assistance Committee. Dedicated methodologies are developed on this basis, to ascertain whether the objectives specific to EU external actions have been met and to formulate recommendations to improve future partnerships worldwide.  Evaluations occupy the two upper segments of the monitoring and evaluation pyramid; the lower levels feed into the process of the upper levels by providing lessons based on findings.

Types of evaluations

 DG INTPA manages two categories of evaluations: strategic evaluations at corporate level, centrally managed by INTPA D4 and intervention evaluations at the level of specific projects and programmes.

Strategic evaluations

Strategic evaluations assess EU strategies, policies and actions, from design to implementation. They usually cover all activities (spending and non-spending, i.e. policy dialogue and cooperation) across several years. In doing so, they involve several European services and actors, and assess the achievement of EU priorities for external actions and progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Strategic evaluations can be of several types depending on their focus: country, regional, global, sector/policy, aid modalities (e.g. budget support) and financial instruments.They benefit from a longer time span and portfolio size, which enable evaluators to draw lessons learned and recommendations at the portfolio or country/regional level.

Intervention-level evaluations

Intervention-level evaluations (also known as Project and programme evaluations) assess relevance, performance and its determining factors in view of sustainability of results, EU added value and coherence, all the while gathering lessons from each intervention. These are managed by EU Delegations or the operational units in charge of the managing the interventions.

Intervention-level evaluations require data collected through internal and external monitoring systems, which are then triangulated, Primary data are collected for these by the evaluation team through a wide range of methods and tools including key informant interviews, focus group discussions and surveys. These evaluations are conducted mid-way through implementation and/or at the end of an intervention and are an integral part of the intervention cycle.

Operational managers do not rely exclusively on evaluations for monitoring throughout implementation. They are responsible for continuous monitoring of interventions and evaluations are not continuous processes, as they take place at specific points in time and have their own objectives. Financial, administrative and operational monitoring data contribute to informing and complete the evaluators' assessment of the intervention's performance. Evaluators verify monitoring systems data and analyse why and how the reported changes happened.Strategic evaluations (and/or meta-evaluations) of thematic or country-level programmes use evaluation and — to some extent — monitoring reports from individual interventions as a source of evidence. They benefit from a longer time span and portfolio size, which enable evaluators to draw lessons learned and recommendations at the portfolio or country/regional level.

Planning

• For strategic evaluations, an evaluation work programme (EWP) is available for strategic evaluations foreseen in the upcoming 5 years. It is updated on a yearly basis.
• Yearly operational evaluation plans (OEP) are also available for internal staff, for projects and programmes (intervention-level) evaluations and are also regularly updated. 

Contracting

• Intervention level  evaluations are undertaken by independent evaluators which are primarily contracted via a Framework Contract. The Framework Contract SEA 2023 (Lot 16) is valid from 13/02/2024. For INTPA Staff,  you can access a guidance document for Lot 16 under point 2.3.
• Any information on evaluations can be requested at INTPA D4 : INTPA-Evaluations@ec.europa.eu

Methodological Support

• For INTPA staff, for any methodological support on the preparation of your evaluation, please contact our helpdesk for advice: INTPA-EVALUATION-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu
• For INTPA staff on the Knowledge extracted from Monitoring and Evaluations, please contact INTPA D4: INTPA-ICM-GUIDE@ec.europa.eu

Methdological fiche(s):

Evaluation Methodology

INTPA intranet page on Evaluation