engleski

Evaluating Pre Accesion Assistance – Rethinking its Effectiveness in Promoting Developmental Change

The authors comment on the concept, principles, tools and practice of current evaluation policy of development programs and reflect upon the theory and practice of EC pre accession assistance (PAA) and cohesion policy (CP), as well as on its contribution to institutional learning and knowledge management. On the basis of the recently carried out evaluation of EC PHARE IPA TAIB programs in the last four years in Croatia, the paper provides an appraisal and informed critique of the overall performance and contribution of these programs from point of view of supporting Croatia’s preparation for accession. The overall contribution of this assistance for promoting change and development impacts, in line with the new challenges facing both Croatia and Europe, is judged on the basis of the main evaluation criteria: efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. The paper is particularly focused on some problems and needs from point of view of paving the way for achieving more substantial development impacts in the framework of the EC assisted and currently implemented projects/programs. This is achieved on the basis of the assessment of 163 projects and interviews held with numerous stakeholders which enabled the evaluation of the mentioned pre accession programs in Croatia. Finally, the paper indicates a number of lessons learned related to the necessary improvement of performance and developmental change to be triggered by way of the currently implemented projects and evaluated pre accession programs in Croatia. It provides several recommendations for further strengthening of the current as well as forthcoming supported projects’ effective and sustainable implementation aiming at reaching major and more concrete development impacts

evaluation policy; pre accession assistance; cohesion policy; evaluation criteria; development impacts

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