Evaluation of the Commission of the European Union’s support to Private Sector Development in Third Countries (PSD)

European Commission support to private sector development (PSD) in third countries increasingly gained importance over the last decade. The Commission issued a specific PSD policy in 2003, COM(2003) 267. It also produced specific PSD guidelines for its staff in 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2010. Commission support to PSD in third countries totaled €2.4 billion of direct aid over the period 2004-2010 (excl. general budget support). It was provided through different funding instruments, funding vehicles, aid modalities, and financial instruments: • : Commission’s geographic instruments (e.g. DCI, ENPI, EDF, AFS) and thematic instruments (e.g. DCI, Restructuring of Sugar Production) • Funding Vehicles: EU Delegations’ regional and bilateral cooperation, centralised operations (e.g. BizClim, Pro€Invest, the EU-ACP Microfinance Programme), the CDE and regional investment facilities and blending mechanisms (e.g. NIF, LAIF, ITF, ACP IF) • Aid Modalities: General Budget Support, Sector Budget Support, Basket Funding, Projects and programmes (incl. technical assistance, twinning, etc.) • Financial Instruments: Loans, equity, quasi-equity, mezzanine capital, other risk capital instruments, factoring, leasing, guarantees, other innovative instruments, etc.; and grants (e.g. as cash, interest rate subsidies or technical assistance) ADE is conducting an overall thematic evaluation of this European Commission support to PSD, covering all areas of PSD in all third countries (except for trade-related assistance and pre-accession and OECD countries) over the period 2004-2010. The two main objectives of this evaluation are (i) to provide an overall independent assessment of this support to PSD; and (ii) to identify key lessons to improve the current and future strategies and programmes of the Commission. The evaluation questions address the evolution of Commission policies & programming in PSD, its overall strategic approach, and coordination with other actors (e.g. EU Member States and the EIB). They also investigate the Commission’s added-value in the field of PSD and its set of funding vehicles and modalities for support in this field. Moreover, they assess the extent to which the Commission attained results in the main areas of its support to PSD: • Institutional & regulatory framework relating to the business environment • Access to finance by enterprises at all levels, incl. MSMEs and access to foreign direct investment (FDI) • Enterprise competitiveness, incl. capacity building, and access to technology and new markets • Investment promotion, incl. support to intermediary organisations or business-to-business investment meetings • Employment generation, through its overall support to PSD The study is based on a large number of evaluation tools and sources, including nine country missions to Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Zambia, South Africa, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Ukraine, and Vietnam.


Project Details
Country THIRD COUNTRIES
Start date 2011.03.30
End date 2012.11.02
Client EC Joint Evaluation Unit AIDCO - RELEX - DEV
Sector EVALUATION
Sub-sector Thematic
Ref. ADE A377-08