Guidelines on Evaluation of the European Cohesion Policy

Abstract

The European Commission provides legal bases that impose monitoring and implementation of cohesion policy. Evaluation is a process that runs through all the phases of cohesion policy implementation. The Commission has issued the EVALSED instructions and recommendations detailing the methods, concepts and methodology of monitoring and evaluation. These instructions assume the theory-based evaluation and evaluation by methods based on the assessment of the causal effect. The theory-based evaluation follows the intervention logic, identifies the causal links and the mechanisms of the change. It answers the questions why and how the intervention works. The approach based on the assessment of the causal effect answers the following questions: if the intervention works, whether there is a causal link, and how big the impact of the intervention is. This article presents the realist evaluation approach which falls within the group of theory-based evaluations. The realist evaluation highlights four related concepts that are helpful in interpretation and understanding of the programmes. These concepts are: mechanism, context, outcome and outcome pattern.