The objective of the sub-component is to build the capacity of the MAFWE by supporting the establishment of a M&E system that ensures effective agricultural and rural development policy design and implementation; and by establishing an information system for effective and efficient management of state-owned agriculture land. It will support technical assistance, goods, trainings, and study tours to strengthen the MAFWE’s capacity for effective M&E and evidence-based policy making. Specifically, technical assistance will be provided for:
- Establishing a M&E system consistent with Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2020 requirements, as described in the recent legislative proposals of the EC. The M&E system will allow to record all relevant indicators — context, output, result, and impact — as envisaged in the CAP post-2020 Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (PMEF) to guide evidence-based decision making in both agriculture and rural development policy, including associated data collection, surveys, and evaluations.
- Strengthening MAFWE’s capacity to re-design the existing Direct Payment scheme in a manner that facilitates compliance with current EU farm income support measures and integration of rural development measures into a common policy framework.
- Mapping of data currently collected (in terms of both variables and software/hardware environment) to assess (a) the needs for and identify data variables to be stored in the platform and (b) the necessary software and hardware infrastructure. The sub-component will provide support to establish one integrated data platform that includes all relevant data associated with agriculture and rural development that is currently compiled by various MAFWE Departments, AFSARD, NEA, State Statistical Office, and others for decision making at central level.
- Identifying a set of agriculture and rural development performance and impact indicators that can guide evidence-based policy decision-making aligned with the CAP 2021-2027 PMEF.
- Development of data update and quality control procedures.
- Facilitating the creation and functioning of an agricultural and rural development evaluation system, including support for ex-ante, ex-post, and thematic evaluations to be carried out by independent experts.
- Creating an information system to improve climate knowledge as well as an information platform with key climatic variables and data to be available to all agricultural stakeholders at the national level.
Goods provided for these aspects will include the necessary software and hardware to store existing historical data into both the integrated platform and the satellite databases specific to MAFWE Departments and Institutions in order for all databases to be compatible between them and at the same time, able to transmit data variables to the integrated platform, in accordance with future policy analysis needs. Training for building MAFWE capacity on M&E and policy analysis capacity as well as evaluation quality control and on the use of evaluation findings for policy analysis.