Review of rural development policy instruments
Janet Dwyer, Ken Thomson, James Kirwan, Mike Clark, Nick Lewis and CaroKambites from CCRI led a consortium of researchers from five other European Institutes to undertake a review of the policy instruments promoting Rural Development (RD) within the so-called Second Pillar of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy for the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture between January 2007 and July 2008.
The review made a detailed analysis of past and current expenditure patterns and priorities across all 27 Member States of the EU and evaluated the extent to which resources are targeted towards measures of relative need, at both European and national or regional levels. It appears that over time, the extent of such targeting has increased, although these results should be treated with caution due to significant issues with data availability, consistency and comparability. The review also examined the evidence for the cost-effectiveness and the coverage of RD measures within the CAP, concluding that the menu that is currently available provides good scope to enable a cost-effective range of RD programmes, but that there are nonetheless many instances where measure-choices and delivery approaches will reduce the likely effectiveness or efficiency of programmes. Some recommendations were made for refining the menu of measures and the way in which these are framed within the regulation in future, in order to help improve their performance.
The study also uncovered a whole range of avenues for more research into the general topic of assessing needs and enhancing policy evaluation. A large RD expenditure and needs database was built for the European Commission's future use.
The final report is now available on the DG Agri website http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/analysis/external/rurdev/index_en.htm
Full research team:
Janet Dwyer, Mike Clark, James Kirwan, Carol Kambites, Nick Lewis, Anna Molnarova and Ken Thomson, Countryside and Community Research Unit, University of Gloucestershire, UK
Francesco Mantino, Serena Tarangioli, Alessandro Monteleone, Martina Bolli, Patrizia Fagiani and Daniela Storti, Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria, Italy
Simone Schiller and Karlheinz Knickel IFLS, Institute for Rural Development Research, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Martin Farmer, David Baldock, Justin Bartley, Kaley Hart and Clunie Keenleyside, Institute for European Environmental Policy
Marie Trantinova and Jaroslav Prazan, VUZE, Czech republic
Dylan Bradley, AgraCeas Consulting Ltd, UK
