Evaluation of the Budget Support Programme to Ukraine’s Regional Policy

Ecorys, together with Edburgh Consultants and Sofreco, performed a budget support evaluation for the European Delegation to Ukraine. The evaluation took place between August and December 2019 and the report was approved in January 2020.

Budget support to Ukraine’s Regional Policy is part of the wider European Union effort to provide Ukraine with support for the short-term priorities identified with the Ukrainian government. The short-term priorities cover the areas of political processes, economic support, trade, mobility, home affairs, energy, enterprise, and transport. It is considered that budget support enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of achieving development goals by contributing to the overall national development strategy and sector strategies.

The evaluation was conducted using the standard OECD-DAC methodology, namely: relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. As the evaluation was not a strategic evaluation, impact was not included. Instead, it employed two additional EU specific evaluation criteria related to EU added value to the programme in respect to its design and implementation and the coherence of the programme. The evaluation assessed the performance of the budget support to Ukraine’s Regional Policy during 2014-2018. Particular attention was paid to the progress achieved against the expected objectives, and to the lessons learned as well as to recommendations that could feed in the design of any future budget support programmes.