Assessment of sectoral support within the CAP

The EU CAP Network, supported by the European Evaluation Helpdesk for the CAP, organised a Thematic Working Group with the goal of creating a shared understanding of how sectoral support can be addressed in the evaluations of the impacts of CAP Strategic Plans. 

The Thematic Report presents the main conclusions of this collective work that assembled researcher, evaluators, and Managing Authorities from March 2024 to November 2024. 

Readers can use the report in a ‘pick-and-choose’ manner, according to their needs and the purpose of the evaluation. The report does not intend to provide specific guidelines or methods, but rather inspirational ideas to create an evaluation framework applicable to the circumstances of the reader. The suggested evaluation frameworks could be useful for evaluating sectoral support separately, as well as for putting specific emphasis on sectoral support under a wider evaluation assessing other CAP aspects.  Moreover, the main focus of the Thematic Report is to provide food for thought on how to evaluate the effectiveness of sectoral support, although also ideas for evaluating relevance, efficiency and coherence of sectoral support are included.  

In particular, the Thematic Report provides ideas for how to evaluate sectoral support 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)), as the evaluation elements which sectoral support has most commonly been designed to address in the CSPs (per the study ‘Mapping and analysis of CAP Strategic Plans’).  

For each element, a general understanding as to why and how sectoral support may contribute is provided, including ideas for developing an evaluation framework. Each proposed evaluation framework consists of one or several evaluation questions that may be asked, accompanied by Factors of Success and indicators, including relevant data sources to construct the indicators.

The proposed frameworks are detailed in Evaluation Question fiches, which can be found in Annex 1. Additionally, Annex 4 contains an overview of the relevant available literature that may be helpful to a Managing Authority or to an evaluator planning the scope of a study.