FINAL EVALUATION of ENI/2015/367-296 "MEDSTAT IV"

MEDSTAT IV is a continuation of MEDSTAT III and aimed at assisting the working groups constituted by the Forum of EU-Mediterranean statisticians to consolidate their work plans, to determine the related activities to respond to their needs and to achieve their goals and to implement these activities. The overall objective of the MEDSTAT IV project was to promote evidence-based decision-making and to foster democratic development by improving the availability, visibility and accessibility of robust, reliable and timely statistical data in the Neighbourhood South countries. Its purposes were defined as follows: To assist the thematic and horizontal working groups in the implementation of their activities for improving quality and availability of statistics; To promote harmonisation of statistics in line with EU and international standards; To help implement the Statistics Code of Practice for the European Neighbourhood South countries throughout the partner countries; To ensure availability and visibility of data to a wide range of potential users. Six thematic working groups were set up: 1. Business registers and business statistics; 2. Energy statistics; 3. Labour market statistics; 4. Migration statistics and surveys; 5. Trade and balance of payments statistics; 6. Transport statistics. With an overall budget of EUR 4.707.070, MEDSTAT IV was implemented between 2016 and 2019. A team recruited by Expertise Advisors was mandated with carrying the final evaluation of the MEDSTAT IV project, with the objectives to provide the EU Commission as well as main stakeholders with: An overall independent assessment of the past performance of the MEDSTAT IV Programme, paying particular attention to its results measured against its objectives; Key lessons and recommendations in order to improve current (if relevant) and future Actions.