Evaluating rural development policy - review of the CMEF

With the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) a guidance document for evaluation of rural development policy has been published by the European Commission. The CMEF defines the requirements on monitoring and evaluation and specifies a limited number of quantitative common indicators applicable to each programme. While in general the introduction of the CMEF is considered as being a helpful tool for carrying out evaluation, substantial criticism has been expressed regarding the suggested methodological approach and the provided set of impact indicators. Based on qualitative analyses, this article focuses on contributing to a better understanding of the evaluation process in order to learn from stakeholder perceptions and draw conclusions on how evaluation of rural development policy can be improved.