Towards an appropriate monitoring and evaluation system for Leader: the Dutch perspective September 25 2006 DG Agri, EU

1. Towards an appropriate monitoring and evaluation system for Leader: the Dutch perspectiveSeptember 25 2006DG Agri, EU, Brussels Dr Peter Laan Program manager LEADER+ MA East-Netherlands National Netwerk Unit, the Netherlands

2. Introduction Remembering the start of LEADER+ in the Netherlands… Leader guidelines Promises Leader as an experimental program Indicators put forward…

3. The scope of Leader in the Netherlands Does Leader result in … Similar results that are achieved in another way, or … In different results compared to mainstream-programs? -> similar projects may result in a different range of outputs and impacts

4. The basic Leader-characteristics and the way they are applied in the Netherlands experimental approach innovative approach public-private cooperation cooperation between actors within the area renewal of local governance bottom up way of working networking area-based development strategies cooperation between areas

5. Reflections on the Leader monitoring system Quantitative vs. qualitative ‘Hard’ socio-economic output vs. process indicators Dynamical development vs. static evaluation systems Short-term vs. long-term effects: time to develop Integration effects Scale-effects

6. Towards a model for efficiently evaluating a Leader-like approach Elements to be considered area-specific and Leader-process aspects should be incorporated Both static, ‘hard’ indicators and dynamical ones should be used Use both qualitative and quantitative indicators in the system

7. Towards a model for efficiently evaluating a Leader-like approach “reflexive monitoring”: self-evaluation should be used in a monitoring system dynamical development does not fit into a static way of monitoring, i.e. “learning process” and transition processes like changing scopes and focus on rural development may influence your evaluation system

8. Organizing the development of an adequate monitoring and evaluation process (1) the EU expert group on M&E should put forward tools and outlines for active local groups working in rural areas to help them in the discussion and reporting of process results starting from the point of lessons learnt” and a real innovative approach, evaluation may be focused on the factors that have been important for the final results (either failures or successes)

9. Organizing the development of an adequate monitoring and evaluation process (2) developing a Leader-like evaluation system is important to stress that function and position of Leader differs significantly from other programs. This may be even more important in the new integrated RDP 2007-2013 Highlighting the Leader philosophy can be effectively done by developing a specific monitoring system Incorporate MTR results and self-evaluation reports of LAGs into the monitoring system

10. Organizing the development of an adequate monitoring and evaluation process (3) think about the ‘reach’ of the program as laid down in Leader Guidelines and develop simultaneously with M&E system (internal process EC) ‘takings risks’, real innovation and ‘learning from experience’ is very hard to make operational, so help this process by adopting a specific set of indicators for the Leader axis

11. Organizing the development of an adequate monitoring and evaluation process (4) be aware of the different scale levels that have to be dealt with in Leader: monitoring on the Program level may significantly differ from that on the LAG-level. Top-down way of monitoring may not appear to be appropriate for Leader. The bottom up approach leads to ‘first hand’ results and records it on the base level. This has to be met somewhere with the top-down indicator set from the EC and not always the right connections between the two levels can be made.