Evaluation of the European Social Fund's interventions in 2000-2006 in the EU from a gender perspective

The purpose of the evaluation was to provide a first assessment of ESF support to the gender equality policy, on the basis of available evidence related to the programming process and to the preliminary stages of implementation of ESF-funded interventions in Member States in the 2007-2013 programming period.

More specifically, three evaluation questions were addressed:

1. The extent to which the promotion of gender equality was taken into consideration in the ESF programming in Member States, and in particular the application of the recommended ‘dual approach’ of combining specifically funded actions with gender-equality mainstreaming practices.
2. The extent to which the promotion of a gender-equality objective was translated into the initial implementation of Operational Programmes (OP) and is embodied in OPs’ general monitoring organisation, monitoring systems and evaluation activities.
3. The main areas in which the ESF was producing or expected to generate European added value as to gender equality.

The main output was a final report relying mainly on the content of 27 country reports and six thematic reports prepared according to a methodology purposely designed for the study, along with information directly collected by submitting a questionnaire to all ESF Managing Authorities.