The Final Report of the Ex-Post Evaluation of the European Union Solidarity Fund (2002-2016), by EPRC's Professor John Bachtler, Dr Martin Ferry, Jayne Ogilvie and LSE's Professor Iain Begg, has now been published on the DG Regio website.
The Final Report describes the aims and operation of the Fund, its evolution over time, and provides answers to a series of evaluation questions concerning its effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and added value for the EU. In addition, it assesses evaluation questions relating to the contribution of the EUSF to solidarity in the EU.
The study presents the results of empirical work drawing on in-depth examination of documentation of all the applications to the EUSF from its inception in 2002 up to the end of 2016, fieldwork research for case studies of seven EUSF interventions and empirical investigation of the synergies of the Fund with other EU and domestic intervention for disaster risk prevention and management.
The evaluation finds that the EUSF achieves its core aim of expressing the EU’s solidarity towards countries affected by severe natural disasters, but it is less obvious that it succeeds in the political aim of demonstrating the value of the EU for beneficiaries. The study assesses in detail the performance of the EUSF, drawing a series of conclusions and making recommendations for the future of the Fund.
For more information about this evaluation, please contact Jayne Ogilvie.