EC: Evaluation of DG ECFIN Forecasting Service

Client: EC - DG ECFIN

Partner(s):

Start/End Date: 18/04/2005 - 18/04/2006

Description:

The objective for this evaluation was primarily to support learning and understanding, leading, where necessary, to changes in the forecasting activities of the DG and their resulting outputs, with consequent benefits for the user communities, both inside and outside the Commission. The evaluation examined the planning, implementation, outputs and effects of the forecasting activities. The evaluation was both retroactive and prospective in nature insofar as it took as its starting point the internal study on the track record of the Commission services' forecasts, published in 1999 and assessed how forecasting activities might need to evolve in the context, for instance, of, changing user needs and possible innovations in the field of forecasting. The evaluation considered DG ECFIN's forecasting activities in the broader context of other DG ECFIN activity forecasts , while at the same time remembering that the DG was but one provider of macroeconomic forecasts among many outside the Commission (e.g OECD, IMF, ECB, Member States Finance Ministries, etc.)

The following services were provided:
• Inception phase:
- Description and inventory of DG ECFIN’s forecasting activities and processes;
- Analysis of DG ECFIN’s forecasting activities rationale and intervention logic;

• Description of the main users and identification of their present and future needs;

• Analysis of the practices of other institutions in the production of forecasts;

• Analysis of DG ECFIN’s forecasting activities and process with regard to:
- the objectives set out in the intervention logic;
- the capacity to produce high quality output;
- their contribution to the accumulation of knowledge and skills within DG ECFIN;
- their contribution to the policy formulation and implementation process.
- Analysis of DG ECFIN communication strategy;

• Recommendations