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OVERVIEW


What is it?

A ROM review is an external and impartial assessment of an ongoing intervention, aimed at enhancing results-based management. Following a standard methodology, the ROM expert assesses the intervention relevance and design, its set-up, progress and achievements, provides recommendations for improvements and highlights good practices and lessons learnt.
ROM reviews are different from evaluations. Evaluations are in-depth assessments, which offer a much deeper and broader analysis. In specific cases, a ROM review may lead to the conclusion that a mid-term evaluation is necessary to define the approach and conditions to re-orient an intervention (without excluding the option of abandoning it).


What can it be used for?

ROM reviews in the 1st year of implementation take place for a representative sample of interventions, to tackle as early as possible potential design weaknesses and implementation delays.
Standard ROM reviews are requested by Operational Managers who want to address implementation issues or need external advice on ongoing interventions.
ROM reviews at closing stage (last 8 months) are requested by EU staff in management and monitoring who need support to draw lessons for a follow-up phase or future interventions.


When can it be used?

ROM reviews in the 1st year of implementation take place for a representative sample of interventions, to tackle as early as
possible potential design weaknesses and implementation delays.
Standard ROM reviews are requested by Operational Managers who want to address implementation issues or need
external advice on ongoing interventions.
ROM reviews at closing stage (last 8 months) are requested by EU staff in management and monitoring who need support to draw lessons for a follow-up phase or future interventions.


Who can use it?

EU staff in management and monitoring


What are its strengths?

ROM reviews are meant to improve implementation and bring benefits to both your work and that of the EU Operational Manager
in the following ways: 1) providing an overview of the main achievements and challenges of an intervention with concrete recommendations to improve performance. 2) if conducted at the beginning of the intervention lifecycle, tackling potential design weaknesses and flaws of the monitoring system, giving the intervention a better chance of achieving the planned results. 3) offering the opportunity to reinforce intervention governance and collaboration among the parties..


What are its limitations?

Budget Support cannot benefit from a ROM review, all other interventions incl.


PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Key elements

The ROM review methodology is focused on results and intends to highlight strengths and weaknesses of an ongoing intervention.
Eight monitoring criteria are applied, four of which are OECD DAC assessment criteria and the other four are specifically linked to the
EU's external action priorities.
A standard set of 30 monitoring questions is used to structure the analysis of documentation and empirical data gathered through
desk and field research. After the mission, the ROM expert provides a report synthetising the answers to the monitoring questions into
key findings per monitoring criterion, including recommendations to improve future implementation. These will need to be followed up
by both EU Operational Managers and Implementing Partners.


Requirements

Data/information.
Key information analysed by ROM experts are structured as follows:

  • Relevance: Is the intervention adapted to needs, rights, priorities and capacities?
  • Coordination, complementarity and EU added value: Is the intervention adding value and fitting coherently into
    the context?
  • Intervention logic, monitoring and learning: Is the intervention designed to allow monitoring, learning and
    reporting of results?
  • Efficiency: Are results being delivered in an economic and timely way?
  • Effectiveness: Is the intervention achieving the intended results?
  • Sustainability: Will the benefits of the intervention last?
  • Cross-cutting issues:  gender equality, human rights, fragility, climate change and environmental issues


Time.
ROM review missions are implemented through three main phases:
The desk phase, involving document and logframe analysis and preparation of the interviews. For ROM reviews of blending interventions this includes the meeting with the LFI and the elaboration of the Preliminary Assessment, as well as the preparation of the interviews. The field phase, in which the main stakeholders are consulted, and briefing and debriefing sessions are conducted with the OM in charge. The reporting phase, in which the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the evidence gathered, performed with the guidance provided by a set of Monitoring Questions, converges into a ROM report by the ROM expert, which is the key deliverable of each ROM review. This phase is completed by an internal Quality Control of the ROM report and submission to the Commission services for comments on the draft and final versions via ROM-OPSYS. Each ROM review takes approximately 3 months, including internal QC and comments by the Commission services. The standard number of working days for ROM reviews of interventions other than blending and budget support is 12,5.
Skills. N/A
Facilities and materials. N/A
Financial costs and sources. N/A
Tips and tricks. N/A


EU RESOURCES


ROM SERVICE UPDATE

The Results-Oriented Monitoring (ROM) service is temporarily discontinued for LOT 1 (Global) and LOT 2 (Sub-Saharan Africa). It continues to be operational under LOT 3 (ENI – European Neighbourhood Instrument) and LOT 4 (WBT – Western Balkans and Türkiye)



For further information, any revision or comment, please contact INTPA-ICM-GUIDE@ec.europa.eu

Published by INTPA.D.4 - Quality and results, evaluation, knowledge management. Last update  May 2025

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