Evaluation of European Commission Macro Financial Assistance (MFA) Operations

Client: DG ECFIN.
Funding agency: European Commission .
Staff involved: Ferry Philipsen, Ferrie Pot, Christian Hiddink, Laura Thissen.

Based on a framework contract with DG ECFIN of the European Commission, Ecorys conducted various ex-post evaluations of the impact of the Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) provided by the European Commission (EC) to various transition countries. The impact of the MFA was assessed on three core areas:

• Effects concerning macroeconomic stabilisation;
• Impact of the required structural reforms (included as conditionalities);
• Sustainability of the external financial situation.

The evaluation was conducted following a three-step approach:

• identified the observed short-term macroeconomic effects and short and medium-term structural effects on the economy and institutions, and pinpointed plausible cause-and-effect relations between assistance and its effects;
• established a counterfactual scenario against which observed (or gross effects) can be compared;
• determinined the net effect of the operation based on a quantitative economic model.

Ecorys conducted an MFA-evaluation for the following countries:

• Romania (concluded in July 2006);
• Macedonia (concluded in July 2006);
• Bosnia & Herzegovina (concluded in April 2007);
• Tajikistan (concluded in April 2007);
• Albania (concluded in April 2008);
• Serbia & Montenegro (concluded in April 2008).
• Moldova (concluded in February 2010).
• Georgia (concluded in January 2010).
• Lebanon (ongoing since July 2011).
• Hungary (awarded).