Use of factors of success in evaluation

The EU CAP Network, supported by the Evaluation Helpdesk, organised a Thematic Working Group in 2023 to promote a common approach regarding the use of factors of success, by showing Member States how to operationalise them in the CAP Strategic Plans evaluations, with a specific focus on their use for the assessment of the key evaluation elements listed in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2022/1475. 

The factors of success explain how the evaluation questions and related key evaluation elements will be answered, by specifying what must be assessed and by setting the rationale for the use of specific metrics (financial allocations, output, result and impact indicators). The factors of success establish the benchmark for assessing whether CAP interventions are effective, efficient, relevant or coherent. They can be used as the core component around which evaluation findings can be structured.  

These guidelines have been prepared to further develop the capacity of Member States to formulate complete and consistent evaluation frameworks, and to demonstrate the full path from objectives to evaluation questions to measurement and attribution of the change observed due to CAP Strategic Plans. 

The guidelines include a main document in which the main assumptions for formulating the factors of success are presented, along with a detailed description of the structure of the factsheets used to present the information for each factor of success. These factsheets are organised in Annexes, which can be used as stand-alone documents.