Using information from Mid Term Evaluation of RDP for the Multicriteria Analysis of Agri-environmental Schemes

This paper discusses how environmental indicators and multicriteria methodologies can support the ex post evaluation of Agri-Environmental Schemes. The paper is based on information from the Mid term evaluation of the Rural Development Programmes and develops around an example that compares Ireland and Emilia-Romagna. The results show that the application of Agri-Environmental Schemes only partially achieves to local objectives, and the way in which the Agri-Environmental Schemes are implemented can be reasonably improved. However, the tentative analysis emphasizes the scarcity of quantitative data that can be related to effectiveness, the lack of predetermined quantitatively defined target levels of objectives and the difficulty to assess the relative importance of different evaluation criteria. Clearly, the ability to properly evaluate the results depends not only on the amount of information gathered, but also on the formalisation of a clear evaluation framework at the design stage of schemes.