Information by the Managing Authority on thematic evaluation of EU structural funds in Iruma Kravale Head of Strategic Planning Unit, European Union Funds Strategy Department, Ministry of Finance Monitoring Committee meeting December 10, 2008

EU SF Managing Authority– Ministry of Finance 2 Agenda  Progress made since previous MC meeting and during all programming period  Recommendation implementation status at the end of the programming period

EU SF Managing Authority– Ministry of Finance 3 Progress made since previous MC meeting Accomplished 5 evaluations in this period:  Analysis of the projects where had been made essential changes within five years from the last payment realization Result: conducted report and methodology  Contribution of the ESF aid scheme, implemented by the Society Integration Foundation, in improving life quality of the socially excluded target groups Result: analysis about GS implementation results and organised conference  Efficiency of the reimbursed EU structural funds expenditures Result: analysis of the effectiveness of the reimbursed EU Structural Funds co-financing for development of the organizations  Impact evaluation of EU SF on the regional development in Latvia Result: analysis of the impact of projects approved under EU SF ( ) on regional development in Latvia  Macroeconomic impact assessment of EU funds Result:  Assessment of the macroeconomic impact of the EU funds on Latvia for the programming periods running from and  Latvian Macroeconomic Model for Evaluation of the Impact of EU funds (LATFUN model).  International conference “Measuring the macroeconomic impact of European Union funds and examining the economic reasoning behind Cohesion policy” May 29-30, 2008

EU SF Managing Authority– Ministry of Finance 4 Progress made during all programming period In programming period altogether 21 evaluation are conducted Accomplished evaluations are available at:

Managing authority of the EU funds – Ministry of Finance 5 Accomplished evaluations (I) 21 evaluations: Together there were 21 evaluations:  strategic (impact assessments),  process,  sectoral Evaluation topics:  Thematic evaluation on the SPD activity ‘Support to productive investments in specially assisted areas’  Significance of cultural sector in Latvian national economy and role of EU structural funds  Thematic Evaluation of the EU Structural Funds - Evaluation of the monitoring indicators of the EU Structural Funds

Managing authority of the EU funds – Ministry of Finance 6 Accomplished evaluations (II)  Thematic Evaluation of the EU Structural Funds - Evaluation of the implementation the activities of the Single Programming Document (hereinafter referred to as SPD) Objective 1 Programme Latvia  Thematic Evaluation of the EU Structural Funds - Evaluation of the monitoring indicators of the EU Structural Funds  Thematic Evaluation of the EU Structural Funds - Evaluation of the implementation the activities of the Single Programming Document (hereinafter referred to as SPD) Objective 1 Programme Latvia  Thematic Evaluation of the EU Structural Funds – Impact evaluation of EU SF on the regional development in Latvia  Evaluation of the preparation of the programming documents of the structural funds

Managing authority of the EU funds – Ministry of Finance 7 Accomplished evaluations (III)  Evaluation of the selection criteria of the structural funds  Evaluation of the efficiency of the SPD implementation system  Coherence of the European Union Structural Funds and the Employment Policies stated in the EU and National Strategic Documents  Analysis of training in agriculture, forestry and entrepreneurship in rural areas  Evaluation of the compliance of horizontal priorities  Ex Ante evaluation of the NSRF and Ops  Remuneration competitiveness of employees involved into implementation of EU Structural Funds in the labour market  Project applicant potential demand for financial support in the activities

Managing authority of the EU funds – Ministry of Finance 8 Accomplished evaluations (IV)  Evaluation of conformity and effectiveness of expenses certification process  Cost of controls of EU funds  Macroeconomic impact assessment of EU funds  Analysis of the projects where had been made essential changes within five years from the last payment realization  Efficiency of the reimbursed EU structural funds expenditures  Contribution of the ESF aid scheme, implemented by the Society Integration Foundation, in improving life quality of the socially excluded target groups  Impact evaluation of EU SF on the regional development in Latvia

EU SF Managing Authority– Ministry of Finance 9 Recommendation implementation plan  Since MC meeting until now Recommendation implementation plan has been supplemented by recommendations of 5 new accomplished researches  Recommendation implementation plan is updated in accordance with information provided by institutions involved in EU SF administration (except MoES, SSBoard, SIF) as by December 2008.

EU SF Managing Authority– Ministry of Finance 10 Recommendation implementation status(I)  In total there are around 450 recommendations expressed by the evaluators  Further only the recommendations to onwards are analyzed, excluding the already implemented and irrelevant (the essence of recommendation does not match the terms of EU SF implementation that have changed due to the next programming period or other factors) recommendations

EU SF Managing Authority– Ministry of Finance 11 Recommendation implementation status(II)

Recommendation implementation status(III)  We express our thanks for all institutions for participation in recommendation implementation process and cooperation in update of Recommendation implementation status EU SF Managing Authority– Ministry of Finance 12

Evaluation capacity building  On December 4-5 MA has organised evaluation capacity building seminar for the Thematic evaluation working group (all institutions involved in the EU funds implementation) to discuss about following topics: Roundup of the evaluation working group experience Evaluation results at the end of programming period Conclusions about the best practice examples in the EU funds evaluation process in Latvia Raising efficiency of the recommendation implementation process for improving overall efficiency of the EU funds implementation Struktūrfondu vadošā iestāde – Finanšu ministrija 13

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