The specific objective of the Initiative is to contribute to the improvement of access to finance for MSMEs in the Neighbourhood South Region, offering a range of financial tools and advisory services adapted to local markets and designed to meet specific needs to boost the competitiveness of MSMEs allowing the creation of sustainable jobs. The specific objectives of this independent mid-term evaluation are to provide the relevant services of the European Union and the interested stakeholders with:
An overall independent assessment of the past performance of the targeted actions, paying particular attention to i) its set up and the implementation by EFIs and ii) its intermediate results measured against its objectives;
Key lessons and recommendations in order to improve current and future European Union strategies and activities in the field of access to finance for MSMEs.
The main difficulty has been the spread of the evaluation covering four specific Regional Facilities, implemented in different countries through four European Financial Institutions, each one with their own procedures and reporting framework. The second difficulty was related to i) the limited reporting data as far as results and impact were concerned for the Facilities in general and ii) the absence of a common reporting framework, coordinated performance indicators, more significantly linked to the embedded “blending”. The last difficulty concerned the coordination framework / platform, which does not have precise objectives, defined expected results, an effective leadership and consolidated reporting at the Initiative level.. The evaluation was carried out for a little less than a year and Expertise Advisors provided 120 days of expertise.
