Review of the draft Development Strategy for the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County – PGC ex post
Commissioned by: The Institute for Physical Planning of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County
Project duration: September, 2015 – October, 2015
Project manager: Nenad Starc, PhD
Brief outline:
Ex post evaluation had the following content:
- an introduction with the explanation of the context of evaluation
- comments on the text of the draft strategy
- remarks on the applied methodology of draft strategy preparation
- final evaluation of the draft strategy.
The context of the ex post evaluation was given by the legal obligations concerning preparation of county development strategies and by the by-laws that defined the preparation methodology. The county strategy for the period 2015-2020 was supposed to follow the strategy for the period 2000-2013 and become operational in 2014. The delay came about due to the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds in charge of coordination and formal methodological guidance of preparation of county development strategies. The Ministry announced the guidelines but failed to provide them in time and advised counties to prolong the implementation of the existing strategies. The Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and its Institute for Physical Planning kept postponing the preparation of the next strategy for almost two years and finally prepared the draft regardless of the lack of guidelines. In such a context it was assumed that the draft strategy did not follow the expected guidelines to the full extent. The evaluation could be accomplished only after the draft strategy was checked against the guidelines in September.
In such a context comments on the text of the draft strategy referred to observed omissions and mistakes and also to inadequacies that due to the lack of the guidelines had yet to be confirmed. The evaluation was accomplished after the draft and guidelines were aligned.
Remarks on the applied method of preparation referred to possible methodological omissions and oversights in the procedure of preparation of the draft strategy.
Final ex post evaluation of the draft strategy summarized comments and methodological remarks and commented on guidelines which were to be provided in September.