Piedmont Region - Italy Supporting Equal DPs – The Experience of the Piedmont Region Erica Giordano

FROM PROJECT CYCLE MANAGEMENT TO GOOD PRACTICES The PCM methodology was applied in the Piedmont Region within the context of the Equal Community Initiative, in order to address the following recurrent problems as: insufficient involvement of the beneficiaries, poor identification of the problems, incoherent objectives in respect to the identified problems, confusion between objectives and action, non-measurable results.

SUPPORT AND PARTICIPATIVE PLANNING final beneficiaries needs Support to projects on behalf of the Piedmont Region was made available to Partnerships throughout their entire life cycle, that is from planning to completion. Every project manager/coordinator was invited to a series of workshops designed to revise their project, by going through the problem tree towards the logical framework definition, with a view to plan interventions which would indeed address the final beneficiaries needs.

THE IMPACT ON DPs making DPs understand the importance of the proposed support DPs reacted quite differently to the TA Unit support: some with enthusiasm, while others, even though formally accepting such guidance, then were reluctant to adopt a different methodology which implied, among other, additional work for them. The main challenge was making DPs understand the importance of the proposed support.

THE IMPACT ON PROJECTS Projects aimed at solving problems Stakeholders involvement in the problem identification phase and throughout the decision-making process Projects response to real needs Context knowledge based on information provided by the stakeholders Identifying objectives as solutions to problems Clear and verifiable indicators Benefits sustainability Attention paid to planning phases Projects ability to concentrate on one problem only Production of standardized reports in order to increase projects clarity

SUSTAINABILITY AS A KEY FACTOR The REGIONAL SERVICES AND TOOLS CATALOGUE

PERSPECTIVES OF THE USE OF PCM INTO REGIONAL PROGRAMMING The experimentation of the Piedmont Region We are using the PCM approach in new ESF regional programming in some areas for the needy population that express complex requirements, such as the disabled and prisoners. With some of these targets, emerged a particularily weak support from Policy. FOCUS GROUPS

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