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Work Meetings for Development of Methodology for Midterm Evaluation of District Development Strategies
23.06.2010

A series of five work meetings were conducted during the period 17 – 23 June 2010 with experts from District Administrations (DA) in Sofia, Veliko Tarnovo, Varna, Burgas and Plovdiv related to the technical assistance granted under the Rio Conventions Project for 26 district administrations in Bulgaria for development of tender documentation / terms of reference for implementation of a Midterm Evaluation (MTE) of the District Development Strategies (DDS) and Methodology for the implementation of the MTE.

The MTE of the implementation of the strategic planning documents is required according to acting national legislation – Regional Development Act (RDA), the Rules and Regulations for the implementation of the DRA and Methodological Guidelines for Update of the Acting Strategies and Plans for Regional and local Development. This procedure includes also the implementation of a MTE of the DDS as the collected information and the recommendations and results during the MTE are to serve as a base during the following Update of the strategies, which is also required according to the legislation. The implementation of a MTE and update of the DDS is viewed as an opportune moment for the integration and the utilization by the district administrations of the seven Strategic Indicators, related to the integration of global environmental objectives such as the loss of biodiversity, tackle the earth erosion, climate changes mitigation and adaptation, which were integrated, during year 2009, by the MRDPW into the monitoring and evaluation of the environmental impact by the implementation of strategic planning documents and strategies legislation.

The basic role of the MTE of DDS is to review the progress towards the objectives set in these strategies and to show the extend to which the objectives match the real condition and recent requirements of the districts and the enclosed municipalities and what modifications are needed regarding to socio-economical, financial and political changes as of year 2006, when the fist strategies were designed and endorsed. For example, the updated DDS need to be correlated with the Operative Programme for Regional Development, with the new regulations of the European Union (EU) and operative documents of the European Commission in the field, as well as with the “Europe 2020” strategy. The MTE is also expected to benefit with regard to the design of the documentation for the next planning period of the structural funds and the National Strategy for Regional Development.

A large number of issues and challenges standing on the path of the DAs in the process of the forthcoming update of the DDS, which need to be addressed during the development of the tender documentation and the Methodology for the implementation of the MTE were pointed out during the discussions. Some of the issues, presented by the DA experts include: the lack of specific funding set in the DAs 2010 budgets for the implementation of the MTE; lack of measurable objectives, indicators, standing and aiming values into the DDS, which would be evaluated; difficult access to updated statistical data and information by the municipalities regarding the implementation of projects set in the municipal development plans, which would be used during the process of update of the DDS; chaotic updates of the municipal development plans following the requirements of one or another operative programme scheme open for applications.