The Public Investment Evaluation Unit (UVAL) provides technical support to government entities, developing, testing and disseminating methods for the ex ante, mid-term and ex post evaluation of public investment projects and programmes. One of the aims is to optimise the use of European Structural Funds.
The Unit evaluates the consistency of investment programmes and projects with economic policy guidelines, their economic and financial feasibility, their compatibility and cost effectiveness compared with alternative solutions, and their socio-economic impact in the geographical areas they aim to support.
UVAL was first established in the context of the wider restructuring of the development policies functions, under the overall responsibility of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which resulted in the establishment of the Department for Development and Cohesion Policies (DPS) in 1998. UVAL reports directly to the Head of the DPS.
UVAL is coordinated by a Unit Head and is staffed with a maximum of 30 highly skilled professionals drawn from academia, international organisations, government and other public entities, including public enterprises, and experts from other EU countries.
Since 2002, the activities of the Unit have focused on the implementation of a unitary programme and are organized into four separate areas:
The history of UVAL
Since 1998 the Unit has played a significant role in the programming of European Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006, setting up the Programme for the Development of Southern Italy (PSM) (pdf, 520 Kb - in italian) and designing incentive mechanisms to enhance the effectiveness of public intervention. It also provided technical support to the DPS in negotiating the Community Support Framework – CSF for Objective 1 Regions and the criteria for the allocation of funds among Objective 1 and Objective 2 Regions with the European Commission.
In recent years, activity has also been dedicated to the re-introduction of feasibility studies and the subsequent transition from studies to design.
UVAL played a major part in setting up the network of central and regional Evaluation Units (in implementation of Law 144/1999) and promoting the use of evaluation in government in a variety of ways, including workshops and training on programme and project planning and evaluation.
Training activities have also been specifically developed for Eastern European countries, notably Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Bulgaria.
UVAL provides technical support to central and regional government entities in defining the rules for implementing programmes, in developing project selection criteria and in defining and implementing Integrated Territorial Projects (PIT).
The Unit also conducts evaluations of economic policies and analysis requested by the CIPE or the DPS.
UVAL provides direct support for the modernisation of the public administration and assists in the preparation of national planning documents.
UVAL is responsible for the methodological and operational coordination of the Regional Public Accounts project (RPA) and handles the operation of the network of RPA teams (a Central Team and 21 regional units). The RPAs are used to measure financial flows at the regional level and are part of Italy's National Statistical System (SISTAN).
The Unit coordinates a range of technical working groups such as the Performance Reserve Technical Group for the allocation of the national performance reserve (6%) and for the reserve of the European Community (4%), the National Evaluation System as well as the interdepartmental working group for the preparation of the financial plan for strategic works. UVAL also participates in numerous other working groups at the international level, such as the European Commission Evaluation Network and the Territorial Development Policies Committee of the OECD.
Since the second half of 2004 UVAL has produced a bimonthly publication Materiali UVAL devoted to issues concerning economic, social and institutional evaluation, informational and methodological support and the dissemination of institutional documentation.
In order to promote greater and better utilisation of existing territorial statistics, UVAL periodically produces a statistical bulletin (in italian) called “Numeri del Sud” that uses territorial indicators to describe the situation in Southern Italy, offering a picture of certain aspects of the quality of life and the business environment that the 2000-2006 CSF has set as objectives for its action. The statistics utilised are drawn entirely from Regional Indicators Database for the evaluation of development policies.
Since 2005 the Unit provided technical contributions and support for the preparation of the CSF for the 2007-2013 period. In particular, UVAL has provided analysis and synthesis based on evaluations and studies on the role and effectiveness of current regional policy action, which were provided by government entities at a number of thematic seminars and during the definition phase of the preliminary strategic documents: the Preliminary National Strategic Document (DSPN) and the Strategic Document for Southern Italy (DSM). UVAL has also undertaken a number of preliminary studies of essential services - pdf, 96 Kb (which were included in the document produced by the Technical Group “Service Objectives for a Number of Essential Services” – pdf, 59 Kb - in Italian) and for the allocation of funds - in italian (pdf, 50 Kb).
The Public Investment Evaluation Unit
