Integrated Territorial Instrument of the Danube Delta – an assessment of its implementation, performance orientation and governance during 2016-2021 - Final Report

The Danube Delta – home to almost 300 bird species and 23 natural ecosystems– is the second largest river delta in Europe, and a World Heritage Site. A sparsely populated area, in acute isolation and with harsh living conditions, however, the Danube Delta experiences significant challenges and it is lagging behind from the perspective of socio-economic and environmental development.The Integrated Strategy for the Development of the Danube Delta (ISDDD) is the reference strategic document for the development of the Danube Delta and its immediate neighbourhood, laying down a long-term vision for the area as a “living delta, with balanced support for the environment and its community.” Its strategic objectives feature the development of the Danube Delta in terms of preserving its unique environmental and natural resources and developing a sustainable green local economy. The strategy is integrated by design, as it covers all aspects relevant for a sustainable development of the Danube Delta over medium to long term.

Prompted by the introduction of the mechanism for integrated territorial development for the European Structural and Investment Fund (ESI Funds) for the programming period 2014-2020,1 the strategy ISDDD was elaborated during 2013-2015 with the support of European Regional Development Fund and the expertise of the World Bank. Adopted in 2016 with a timeframe until 2030, the strategy was launched in implementation in the period 2014-2020 primarily based on EU financing from all operational programmes for ESI Funds in Romania. Over this period, a total of 1.3 billion euro was allocated for investments in all domains important for the development of the Danube Delta and its immediate neighbourhood. These domains include protecting biodiversity, developing the local economy, improving connectivity, modernizing the public services for education, health, social inclusion, water and waste management, and improving local administrative capacity and governance.The objective of this assessment is to gather evidence and assess what worked and what could work better with the implementation of the strategy ISDDD based on the experience accumulated during the programming period 2014-2020. The study also includes an analysis of the performance orientation and the governance structure established for the implementation of the strategy, with the objective of identifying further avenues for improvement, where applicable, in view of the next programming period 2021-2027. This study was commissioned by the Directorate General of Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission and conducted during the period November 2021- March 2022.2

The reference period for the evaluation is 2016-2021, and it covers all investments financed from allocations for integrated territorial development (ITI) in the 8 operational programmes in Romania for the programming period 2014-2020.The present document is the final report of the assessment, and has the following structure. In the next section, Section 2, we present the main coordinates of the strategy for the integrated development of the Danube Delta, as relevant for the analysis in the study. Section 3 presents the two main previous evaluations of the ISDDD strategy and their recommendations for the programming period 2021-2027. Section 4 presents the methodological aspects of the study in terms of evaluation questions, data collected, and reference points. Section 5 includes the analysis of the status of implementation of the strategy over the reference period, with an emphasis on the distribution of the ITI investments across the main investment pillars of the strategy ISDDD. Section 6 includes the analysis of the alignment of the ITI investments implemented during 2014-2021 with the strategic priorities and the action plan foreseen in the ISDDD strategy. Section 7 includes the analysis of the time efficiency and operational effectiveness of the implementation of ITI investments. Section 8 presents the analysis of the governance and coordination mechanism for ITI investments, while Section 9 summarizes the main findings of the evaluation and provides recommendations for further improvements for updating and implementing the strategy ISDDD in the period 2021-2027. Annexes to the report complete the document.

1 Introduced as a new implementation tool for Cohesion Policy for the period 2014-2020, the ITI mechanism enables coordinating investments from one or several programmes for ESI Funds for an integrated approach to the development of a specified territory. For details see the study DG REGIO (2017) in References.2 All questions regarding this study should be addressed to DG REGIO at: REGIO-ROMANIA@ec.europa.eu .