COIN Open Day - Assessment of EU funded development projects
Ispra, Italy
Aim:
This workshop brings together DEVCO Unit 04, with scientists of the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards (COIN) with a view to discuss together how to further improve the index and to ensure that it is developed using the highest standards in composite indicator methodology.
Description:
Two project performance scores have been developed, using the data collected on the outputs and outcomes achieved by EU funded development projects along with the responses to a questionnaire administered to project managers. The implementation score is backward-looking and seeks to summarise the current performance of a project in terms of relevance, effectiveness and efficiency. The risk score is forward-looking and seeks to summarise the expected performance of a project in terms of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. Current effectiveness and efficiency are measured using the results data, whereas relevance, sustainability and future effectiveness and efficiency are assessed using the questionnaire. The measurements of each of the aspects of performance are then combined to generate the implementation and risk scores for each of the projects on an annual basis: see methodology in separate document.
Societal impact:
The project performance scores are expected to generate different benefits at different time horizons for different stakeholders. Short run: DG DEVCO finances thousands of development projects every year. Each project uses a logical framework matrix to specify the indicators used to track progress towards the achievement of development objectives. Project managers in EU Delegations can be responsible for up to 25-30 projects, each one tracking 20-30 indicators. The project performance scores will help project managers make better use of the information generated by the monitoring framework for all of their projects and improve the management of development projects. Medium run: Although all development projects are required to use a logical framework matrix and the associated indicators to assist with monitoring, many projects fail to maintain an updated matrix and therefore resources are wasted when data is collected on irrelevant indicators (and data is not collected on relevant indicators) during the annual reporting exercise. The hope is that if the data collected on the logframe indicators are used to calculate highly visible scores, this will create an incentive to maintain a relevant monitoring system. Long run: Ultimately, more meaningful project data will contribute to richer evaluations which will feed the learning process and lead to projects delivering improved development results for beneficiaries all around the world, for the same cost to EU taxpayers.