Overview
The Programme Document is an accompanying document to the Single Programming Document (SPD) of Lithuania for 2004-2006, as provided by Article 18 of the General Regulation on Structural Funds (1260/99).
At the present juncture it is still a draft, because the Programme Complement will finally be accepted by the monitoring committee, when the Commission has decided about the SPD. The draft Programme Complement has been worked out already now advisedly to facilitate the processing of the SPD in the Commission.
The specific objectives of the development plan are set out below:
to develop new and improve existing physical infrastructure in order to promote economic growth and facilitate the free movement of goods, services and people;
to ensure that development supported through the SPD is compatible with the principle of sustainable development;
to improve the skills base of the Lithuanian labour force and to ensure that the workforce is both flexible and adaptable. Another key objective is to upgrade skills and qualifications particularly amongst disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed and young people. Another important objective is to ensure that skills and competencies taught are relevant to labour market requirements;
to strengthen economic competitiveness by creating the necessary framework conditions for growth, the promotion of a favourable business environment and investment climate conducive to the growth and development of both existing businesses and new business start-ups;
to strengthen the process of economic restructuring already underway in Lithuania;
The forecasting of benefits occurring due to the implementation of the programme presents particular problems, particularly in relation to results and impacts. There are also difficulties arising from interrelationship between priorities, measures and individual projects. This requires some account to be taken of the potential for double-counting of benefits, and also the synergistic benefits of the activity supported.
There are essentially two methods of quantifying outputs, results and impacts Structural Fund interventions. The first is to make estimates based on a top-down approach – looking at projected changes in key macro-economic indicators, while the second, the bottom-up approach, is based on an aggregation of output estimates at the measure level up to the priority and programme level.
The estimation below attempts to combine both approaches so as to provide a comprehensive assessment of the likely outcomes of interventions supported by the Lithuanian Objective 1 programme. ‘Bottom-up’ assessment has been provided and verified by the ex-ante evaluators of the Lithuanian Objective 1 programme. In terms of the methodology used to calculate expected outcomes/ impacts, the ex-ante evaluators used a mixture of EU benchmarks from previous evaluation studies (with adjustments for the Lithuanian context) and, where available, information from local sources (e.g. on typical costs of business support provision etc.). Top-down estimates have been made through macro-economic forecasting by the Fiscal policy department at the Lithuanian Ministry of Finance.