Our services have started the evaluation of European Community support to third countries in the area of statistics. This evaluation covers the support provided to all countries and regions with cooperation agreements with the European Community -to the exception of accession countries- during the period 1996-2005. It will include a desk study in Europe and four case studies. The synthesis report is expected for October 2006.

This evaluation is carried out under a Service Contract with the joint Evaluation Unit of EuropeAid - RELEX - DG Development. The aim of the service contract is to provide the Evaluation Unit with a flexible and effective tool to undertake sectoral and thematic evaluation studies. So far, the following sectors have been evaluated by our services: transport (all third countries); trade related technical assistance (all third countries); private sector development (all third countries) and economic cooperation (Mediterranean countries). Our services have also evaluated the coherence between EU Fisheries agreements and development support and they are currently carrying out three sector evaluations: coordination aspects in trade capacity building interventions (all third countries); rural development (all third countries) and micro-projects and programmes (ACP countries). When finished, these studies are available in the web site of the Evaluation Unit of EuropeAid.