THE CASE OF THE EUROPEAN-UNION

The paper provides an overview of the recent EU experience in BOP Supp ort programmes. The author considers the evaluations carried out by th e EU, discussing both the findings and the methodological issues relat ed to these works. The evaluations have assessed the relevance, impact , effectiveness and efficiency of the global reform processes and EU s upport in the respective countries. Some important issues raised by th ese evaluations are: the need for greater participation, and leadershi p of the EU in the policy dialogue, programme preparation and monitori ng; the need to improve budget management and accountancy procedures i n state and parastatal bodies; and the encouragement of more effective targeting mechanisms, by greater lying of EU support to performance i mprovements in the priority sectors so that actual expenditures in the se areas are ensured. The paper discusses the EU's experience in apply ing the Logical Framework to programme aid. The log frame helps the ev aluator a great deal in under standing the programme's structure and c onsistency, i.e. how it was prepared and the coherence between objecti ves and means. It offers little help however with respect to the evalu ation methodology, which has to find the most appropriate ways to deal with each one of the main issues: relevance, impact, effectiveness an d efficiency of any particular BOP support programme. Both in the prac tical work at country level and in the evaluation guidelines under pre paration by the Commission, the possible application and usefulness of the Logical Framework approach has not been considered a methodology, but rather a useful tool making explicit all the components of a prog ramme: its development goals, its specific objectives and target benef iciaries, its detailed activities and the accompanying measures.