Croatian Evaluators Network Meeting Held

Organized by the Croatian Evaluators Network (HEM) and the Ministry of Work, Pension System, Family and Social Policy (MRMSOSP), a hybrid (online and live) meeting was held on 11 November 2021 after a longer break. The meeting was aimed at experts of public policy, program and project evaluations, contractors of such evaluations as well as other interested stakeholders. The topic of the meeting was a presentation of the experience, processes, obstacles and lessons learned related to several evaluations of the OP Efficient Human Resources 2014-2020 with particular reference to the Evaluation of effectiveness, efficiency and impact of the implementation of the OP Efficient Human Resources 2014–2020 and ESF interventions according to the criteria of regional and local representation and criteria of horizontal principles commissioned by MRMSOSP, as the evaluation of the largest scope and value. More than fifty participants attended the meeting, mostly consisting of evaluation experts and researchers as well as officials from several ministries.

The program began with the presentation by Maja Horvat, director of MAP Consulting Ltd., who was with Mladen Vojković from WYG Consulting Ltd. a key expert on the aforementioned evaluation. In her presentation from the evaluator’s perspective, Maja touched upon the key elements of the evaluation process starting from the bidding process, selection and implementation of the methodology, communication with the Ministry, and structuring and production of deliverables. In particular, she addressed the lessons learned as well as the positive and negative sides of different aspects of implementation. More on the evaluation’s scope is available here, and on the evaluation’s results here.

This was followed by a presentation by Ivana Matošin, Aleksandra Grubić Jureško and Marko Lucić from the MRMSOSP who, this time from the client’s perspective, also presented their experiences, obstacles and lessons learned in ordering and implementing evaluations related to the implementation of the OP Efficient Human Resources. They described in detail the entire evaluation process starting with the public procurement, the adequacy of some quantitative criteria when contracting experts, processing and availability of data, and communication with evaluators. In order to improve further co-operation and communication between public administration and evaluator experts, they presented the key technical problems they encounter in such co-operations and recommendations on how to overcome them.

A discussion on the current state of evaluation practices in Croatia, the current needs of the evaluation sector and identification of the potential topics for future discussions concluded the meeting, all with a goal to further development the evaluation culture in Croatia.