Evaluation Capacity building in Lithuania Presentation for Presentation for Evaluation Units Open days by Mrs. Ana Stankaitienė EU Programmes Management Department Ministry of Finance, Lithuania 27 June Lithuania

Structure of presentation Overall framework for the Evaluation of the Structural Funds Interventions in Lithuania Main evaluation projects and lessons learned Domestic Evaluation market : supply and demand sides Challenges for the period

Structural Funds funding to Lithuania in the period During the years Lithuania is treated as one of Objective 1 region. Therefore, one Single Programming Document (SPD) for this period has been prepared. The Ministry of Finance was nominated as the Managing Authority (MA); Lithuania also benefits from the EU Structural Funds under two Community Initiative Programmes:  EQUAL (Ministry of Social Security and Labour as the MA) and  INTERREG (Ministry of Interior as the MA)

Organising the evaluation function in the period Evaluation context: Evaluation context: –Little prior tradition of evaluation; –Low evaluation capacity baseline; –Some experience of evaluating Phare programmes. Solutions: Solutions: –Centralised approach to evaluation (with involvement of other stakeholders); –External type of evaluation; –Internal capacity building.

Centralised approach to evaluation The Ministry of Finance as MA has overall responsibility for managing evaluation and monitoring functions of SPD The involvement of main stakeholders in evaluation management is ensured via the Evaluation Management Group (EMG). E stablishment of this institutional body to better planning and co-ordinating the evaluation function: –chaired by the Ministry of Finance; –all intermediate bodies are represented; –Independent evaluation experts are also invited.

Evaluation projects carried out in : Ex-ante evaluations of the SPD as well as the EQUAL and INTERREG Programmes (carried out by a consortium of foreign and local companies) in 2004; Two thematic evaluations in 2005: - evaluation of the SPD implementation system and - evaluation of future Structural Funds priorities (carried out by a consortium of local companies); Ongoing evaluation of the EQUAL Programme (carried out by a local consortium); Evaluation capacity building project (carried out by a consortium of foreign and local companies).

Evaluation Capacity Building Project The Evaluation training for civil servants and experts is organised; Methodological documents are prepared :, - the evaluation guide, which will help to plan, organise and use the evaluation of the EU structural funds programmes in Lithuania, - methodological guidelines for the definition and application of indicators for monitoring ; Dissemination of evaluation information: in particular the Regional Conference.

Lessons learned under the thematic evaluation: SPD implementation system Too broad scope of evaluation (a lot of evaluation questions); Insufficient attention for quality control (inadequate human and time resources for this task); Involvement of main stakeholders in the initial stage of evaluation process has to be ensured; The timing of the evaluation is very important;

A supply side of the evaluation market in Lithuania the importance of sufficient evaluation capacity at domestic level in smaller EU Member States; the domestic market is dominated by a few consulting companies, also individual researchers are involved; the importance of partnership between domestic and European companies in the evaluation area; still a shortage of qualified local evaluators with specific skills to meet increasing evaluation demand in the future; stimulation of the supply side through various capacity building actions (training, guides, publicity);

A demand side of the evaluation market in Lithuania driven by regulatory requirements of the EU Structural Funds regulations; launching a few non-mandatory evaluations to improve the design of national programmes and their implementation (two ongoing evaluations of thematic nature) and evaluation capacity building project; preparation of the Evaluation Plan.

Challenges for the period One National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), but several Operational Programmes; Ex-ante evaluation of the new Operational Programmes co-ordinated by the Ministry of Finance and steered under the Evaluation Management Group; Preparation for on going evaluation of the Operational Programmes during their implementation; Preparation of the Evaluation Plan for

What further? How to organise on-going evaluation: how to create more close contact between monitoring and evaluation? How to make evaluation results more usable? What next steps of evaluation capacity building?

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