Capturing the outcomes of the European Territorial Cooperation Programmes Follow up to ex post evaluation of INTERREG III Presentation Template Ieva Kalnina, INTERACT 25 October 2011 | Brussels

2 Presentation Template | General Rules A million Euro question What changes does cross-border cooperation bring to Europe, cross-border areas and border communities? OR What do we deliver with the funds we receive and what change takes place as a result of these deliverables (outputs)?

Presentation Template | General Rules 3 What do European cooperation programmes deliver? New and maintained jobs Support to business development Half a million people have participated in trainings and events km of roads, routes, railways etc have been built BUT Similar outputs are delivered also by the Objective 1 and 2 programmes – why finance the same under ETC?

European cooperation programmes have also produced New and extended cooperation networks Cooperation agreements Joint cultural, natural, urban and rural measures BUT What has changed as a resulted of these for the population living in the border area?

Envisaged outcomes of the exercise Clarification of current programme focus Clarification of ETC objective Inputs for next programming period

The exercise Follow up to the conclusions from the ex post evaluation of INTERREG III Initiated by DG Regio in Tournai last September Based on voluntary participation of programmes Carried out either through internal reflection exercises within MA/JTS or as part of programme evaluations

Pilot exercise Using the approach: -CBC: UK-FR-BE-NL (Two Seas), FR-SUI, FR-BE, CZ-PL, DK-SE- NO (OKS), North -Transnational: North Sea, North West Europe Programme internal reflections: -CBC: Ireland-Wales -Transnational: Northern Periphery Case studies on (1) “programme maturing” (Germany – Netherlands) and (2) capturing attitudinal and behavioural change (Peace III) + Analysing programme evaluation outcomes, linking with other related activities & raising wider awareness

First observations on the design of ETC programmes The programme scope is generally too wide and the available (limited) funding is spread too thin Majority of programmes have identified priority intervention areas without explicitly defining what needed to be changed about these Programmes are rarely embedded in or linked to the wider context: the overall development needs of the cooperation area. Wider strategies often do not exist or are vague Programmes primarily rely on bottom-up approach in programme implementation Role of cooperation maturity and programme’s continuity

First observations on the outcomes of ETC programmes: clarification of the ETC objective European Territorial Cooperation programmes contribute to the overall (economic, social / societal and territorial) cohesion of the EU by supporting cohesion of respective cross-border or transnational programme areas and by working together with common assets and/or challenges Through this programmes create: common identity, integrated physical space, services and communities, balanced development, solutions for common challenges, experimentation, grounds for investments, improved policies and governance etc.

Types of change Integration related: common identity, integrated community and services, business & education frameworks, common branding Investments (in wider sense): filling in the gaps through investments in physical, economic and social infrastructure, investments in human resources, preparation of investment projects, development of solutions for joint challenges Policy and governance related: improved governance capacity, coordinated governance, improved regional peformance

The essential steps of the reflection process Answering the question “What change are we aiming to deliver?” and how to measure it? Setting the baseline Verifying to what extent the projects we fund contribute to that change?

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