Assessing CAP sectoral support

All Member States implement sectoral support, although not all Member States implement it for the same sectors, nor with the same objectives.

The CAP Strategic Plan Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 offers the possibility to support a large range of diverse sectors and objectives through the design of sectoral support, allowing Member States to make use of sectoral support in accordance with their specific needs as part of their CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs).

As for all other types of interventions designed under the CSPs, it is not mandatory to evaluate sectoral support independently, although some Member States may choose to do so. At the same time, it is highly relevant to take sectoral support into account for the evaluation of the impact of the CAP in relation to various CAP Specific Objectives. Sectoral support has been designed to address all Specific Objectives for the 2023-2027 CAP programming period, although most frequently it is aimed at addressing the economic objectives (Specific Objectives (SO) 1, 2 and 3).

The implementation of sectoral support in the fruit and vegetables, apiculture, and wine sectors is mandatory, although Member States not producing wine are not concerned by this support, and fruit and vegetables sectoral support is not implemented in Member States where no Producer Organisation (PO) fits the requirements of the Common Market Organisation (CMO) in this sector. With the latest CAP reform, support for ‘other’ sectors through POs was included as a new feature. The list of sectors which may be supported is extensive, and this option has been taken up by several Member States.

Sectoral support can be implemented through three types of interventions, with significant differences in its operation:

Evaluations of sectoral support can be approached in two ways; either i) the effects from sectoral support are captured as part of a wider evaluation (e.g. the impacts of an entire CSP are assessed in relation to one SO/evaluation element via an objective-driven evaluation), and/or ii) a separate evaluation of sectoral support is undertaken, which only considers sectoral support and no other types of interventions. Such a study may consider all sectoral support as a package or only some of the interventions (i.e. intervention-driven evaluation) and examine its impacts in relation to several SOs/evaluation elements/sectoral objectives or its effects on targeted sectors. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive, one may choose to assess sectoral support according to both approaches.

The thematic report on 'Assessment of sectoral support within the CAP' explains when it is particularly relevant (e.g. for what SOs and evaluation elements) to include sectoral support in the evaluation scope for an objective-driven evaluation and how sectoral support can then be approached in relation to these elements. It also provides ideas for when undertaking an evaluation specifically of sectoral support may be more suitable. Furthermore, it showcases the use of different evaluation criteria (e.g. effectiveness, efficiency, relevance and coherence) in relation to the assessment of sectoral support in order for the reader to adapt the approach most suitable to the given circumstances.

Once the scope of the evaluation is clear, the evaluation framework needs to be developed according to the specificities of a study. It suggests a set of questions, judgement criteria/factors of success (FoS) and indicators allowing measurement of the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and/or added value of policies. The evaluation framework can guide the entire evaluation process, from planning and data collection to analysis and reporting, ultimately supporting informed decision-making and continuous improvement in policy development.

Examples of detailed evaluation frameworks applicable for the evaluation elements which sectoral support has most commonly been designed to address are available in the thematic report e.g. in relation to risk management (SO1), competitiveness (SO2), farmers’ position in the food chain (SO3), environmental and climate objectives (SO4/5/6), and knowledge (Cross-Cutting Objective (CCO)).

SO1 - Supporting viable farm income/risk management

SO2 – Increasing competitiveness

SO3 - Improving farmers’ position in the value chain

SO4 – Contributing to climate change mitigation/adaptation/renewable energy

SO5 – Efficient natural resource management

SO6 – Halting and reversing biodiversity loss

CCO – Fostering knowledge and innovation

Each proposed evaluation framework consists of one or several EQs that may be asked. These are accompanied by FoS and indicators, including relevant data sources for constructing the indicators.

Note that the indicators have foremost been proposed on the basis of the data already required to be collected by Member States through the Performance and Monitoring Evaluation Framework (PMEF), including data for monitoring and evaluation (DME) (the green boxes in the visual). Additional data proposed to create the indicators is voluntary to collect (in yellow and purple in the visual above).

One of the major challenges for evaluating sectoral support concerns the attribution of changes observed. In particular, when evaluating the effectiveness of sectoral support specifically rather than the entire CSP, the PMEF indicators are of limited usefulness. There is only one PMEF result indicator (RI), i.e. R.11 (share of value of marketed production by producer organisations or producers’ groups with operational programmes in certain sectors), to which only sectoral support may be linked, as all other RIs refer to the results from several interventions. Hence, although these other RIs provide a valuable source of information to assess the achievement of the proposed FoS, it is not possible to isolate the specific contribution from sectoral support from the contribution of other CSP interventions. In addition, if only the effect on a certain sector is of interest, then the contribution from other sectoral interventions out of the scope of the evaluation would have to be removed.

In addition, because the RIs are linked to several interventions, no targets or milestones are defined for sectoral support specifically, and thus, there is no quantifiable target against which the effectiveness of sectoral support can be assessed independently from that of other CSP interventions.

The same issue occurs when linking results to PMEF impact indicators. To understand the contribution of sectoral support to the evolution of an impact indicator, the effects from sectoral support in relation to other CSP interventions or effects external to the CSP would have to be netted out. However, this is often very complex to do.

To overcome this, the thematic report contains several ideas and recommendations. Among these, it is recommended to use supplementary information and data, allowing the creation of complementary indicators in addition to the indicators listed in Annex I of the SPR, which allows singling out attribution, particularly from sectoral support, to a greater extent. These complementary indicators build on additional data – or data at a more granular level – generally collected by or available to Managing Authorities. Of course, it is also recommended to collect additional data from beneficiaries or other stakeholders concerned by the support.

Furthermore, due to the lack of quantifiable targets for sectoral support, it is recommended to assess the effectiveness of sectoral support by critically considering the improvements due to the implementation of interventions rather than assessing the advancement in relation to a quantifiable target. The types of improvements would benefit from being defined at the outset of the study to avoid confusion during the data collection phase.

Step 1 – Define the scope

The decision whether to assess sectoral support separately and/or as one component of a wider SO/evaluation element evaluation can be guided by the following four overarching criteria: