Towards an Enhanced Evaluation of European Rural Development Policy Reflections on United Kingdom Experience

Dwyer, Janet C; Bradley, Dylan; Hill, Berkeley

doi:10.4000/economierurale.421

Cited by 24 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…A move away from a focus on outputs, towards greater emphasis on outcomes and local delivery processes, which have a direct effect on the quality of programmes and their impacts (Dwyer et al . ), would draw more heavily on local factors. Such an approach would not only empower local communities (Díaz‐Puente et al .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowering Local Action through Neo‐Endogenous Development; The Case of LEADER in England

Annibal²,

et al. 2015

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Neo-endogenous rural development depends on 'bottom-up' activities that integrate external influences to increase local potential. This local focus calls for local knowledge, local resources and the engagement of local people to be central to development processes. Based on data from an evaluation of LEADER in England, we explore the scope for local control and the effective means of creating local empowerment within the neo-endogenous model. Interviews were held with policy actors and beneficiaries of funding across 20 of the 64 Local Action Groups in England. These highlighted a great diversity of projects generating an equally diverse range of outcomes. However, capturing their full value was problematic, suggesting that new approaches to evaluation should be explored to increase local control of the development process. Findings also indicate that the negotiation between top-down and bottom-up, and local and external influences is an ongoing process. Through this process, local learning has empowered local actors to develop flexible approaches tailored to their localities, but local empowerment is more effective when top-down parameters are clearly established.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowering Local Action through Neo‐Endogenous Development; The Case of LEADER in England

Annibal²,

et al. 2015

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“…It aims at determining the relevance and fulfilment of objectives, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and sustainability of actions implemented by the SI initiative [55,56]. It also aims to address weaknesses of previous approaches to evaluation in various domains (e.g., CF, rural development, and sustainability) such as the lack of a systemic approach, a focus on outputs at the expense of outcomes and processes, and a lack of relevance with regards to the needs of the end-users [19,[57][58][59].…”

Section: The Social Innovation Evaluation Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Are the Impacts of Social Innovation? A Synthetic Review and Case Study of Community Forestry in the Scottish Highlands

et al. 2021

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In a context of political and economic austerity, social innovation has been presented as a solution to many social challenges, old and new. It aims to support the introduction of new ideas in response to the current urgent needs and challenges of vulnerable groups and seems to offer promising solutions to the challenges faced by rural areas. Yet the evidence base of the impacts on the sustainable development of rural communities remains scarce. In this paper, we explore social innovation in the context of community forestry and provide a brief synthetic review of key themes linking the two concepts. We examine a case of social innovation in the context of community forestry and analyse its type, extent, and scale of impact in a marginalized rural area of Scotland. Using an in-depth case study approach, we apply a mixed research methodology using quantitative indicators of impact as well as qualitative data. Our results show that social innovation reinforces the social dimension of community forestry. Impacts are highlighted across domains (environmental, social, economic, and institutional/governance) but are mainly limited to local territory. We discuss the significance of those results in the context of community forestry as well as for local development. We formulate policy recommendations to foster and sustain social innovation in rural areas.

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“…Because programming periods run consecutively without a break, the planning and agreement of a new programme has to take place before the results of ex post evaluations of the one it is to replace are available. Findings and recommendations can only be fed into the next‐but‐one RDP (see Dwyer et al , 2008 and Parlons Graphiques in this Issue) This puts great responsibility onto the MTE to improve the performance of policy interventions in successive programmes. However, even information from MTEs is frequently not available for this purpose because of slippage in programme approval and in the active promotion and implementation of some measures (particularly those requiring more complex application procedures).…”

Section: Operational Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When the setting of evaluation questions and designation of indicators is done at Commission level, there is a danger of inappropriate choices. For the period 2000–06, Dwyer, Bradley and Hill (2008) noted that some indicators bore little relevance to the circumstances of particular countries or regions.…”

Section: Operational Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bradley¹,

Dwyer

Hill

2010

EuroChoices

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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.

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Towards an Enhanced Evaluation of European Rural Development Policy Reflections on United Kingdom Experience

Cited by 24 publications

References 8 publications

Empowering Local Action through Neo‐Endogenous Development; The Case of LEADER in England

Empowering Local Action through Neo‐Endogenous Development; The Case of LEADER in England

What Are the Impacts of Social Innovation? A Synthetic Review and Case Study of Community Forestry in the Scottish Highlands

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

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Towards an Enhanced Evaluation of European Rural Development Policy Reflections on United Kingdom Experience

Cited by 24 publications

References 8 publications

Empowering Local Action through Neo‐Endogenous Development; The Case of LEADER in England

Empowering Local Action through Neo‐Endogenous Development; The Case of LEADER in England

What Are the Impacts of Social Innovation? A Synthetic Review and Case Study of Community Forestry in the Scottish Highlands

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

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

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