The Evaluation of Rural Development Policy in the EU
L’évaluation de la politique de développement rural dans l’Union européenne
Die Evaluation der Politik zur Entwicklung des ländlichen Raums in der EU

Abstract

Summary The Evaluation of Rural Development Policy in the EU Evaluation is firmly established as part of rural development policymaking in the EU. A requirement to evaluate is set out in the Rural Development Regulation, the legal basis for spending EU funds on agreed aspects of rural development, which also stipulates the process to be used. Member States are responsible for ensuring that independent ex ante, mid‐term and ex post evaluations are carried out for each seven‐year Rural Development Programme (RDP), but with inputs from the Commission, notably on common evaluation questions to be used in all countries. Such a heavily structured system has both advantages and disadvantages. Consistency of approach enables synthesis of evaluation results at the EU level and provides a degree of quality control. However, it constrains the ability of evaluators to pursue issues which may be of importance locally or to other stakeholders. Technical details, especially the timing of evaluation stages, also diminish the ability to learn from past programmes. Data availability remains an important issue. Nevertheless, our experience is that it is both possible and important to learn from evaluating RDPs, not only to measure their apparent achievements, but also to enhance the quality of the policy process, at all levels.

The dynamic effects of government-supported farm-investment activities on structural change in Austrian agriculture

“…Furthermore, it can be assumed that such effects might even be of relevance in the case of farm investments, since establishing agricultural investments often requires long timespans; in this context, Hoffmann et al (1997), 1 See Imbens and Wooldridge (2009) for detailed descriptions of these estimators. Forstner (2000) and Bradley et al (2010) point out that chosen observation periods might be too short to be able to measure the full implementation success of investments.…”

Private capital in the rural development programme: the case of the Apulia Region, Southern Italy

“…The key factors contributing to the local success of the implemented tools surely derive from multi-level cooperation among various public, private, and civil stakeholders at local level (Perger 2016). From there, fluent communication among public and private organisations, not to mention the effective integration of objectives and policies, will prove essential for setting up appropriate governance patterns (Brunori-Rossi 2007). The function of policies in facilitating or promoting private local development depends upon the institutional and social 'ability' of stakeholders in leveraging available policies (Mantino 2005).…”

“…These two issues point to a key challenge in undertaking an impact evaluation -namely, the scope of the impact evaluation (Leeuw-Vaessen 2009). Researchers such as Bradley et al (2010) stress that evaluations of rural development policies are mandatory for each member state during the programming period of their RDPs, with spot checks undertaken by the EC. Obviously, from the outcomes of previous programmes, it can be known that various techniques and temporal-distance phases have limitations that will impact future programming; nonetheless, an evaluation process can promote the quality and eventual success of an implemented policy.…”

The Performance Indicators of Agricultural Holdings: Comparison Between Lithuania and Italy

“…In addition, it can support the advisory and extension segment, as well as the research and academic community". Thus, as remarked in some official reports and scientific works, assessing the impact of the European expenditure for rural development is crucial for academics and policy makers (Can …, 2013;Bradley, 2010).…”