Administrative Capacity Building for Regional Development

Since 2018 and together with the European Commission, the OECD has actively helped managing authorities of EU Cohesion Policy funds build administrative capacities to better manage and implement their investment programmes. We support managing authorities in developing Administrative Capacity Building (ACB) Roadmaps and implementing concrete, capacity-building actions. We also help managing authorities strengthen the capacity of their Cohesion Policy fund beneficiaries to design and implement high-quality projects.

Over the years, we have collaborated with national and regional public authorities in Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the Slovak Republic, looking at practices in people management, organisational structures, strategic planning and implementation, beneficiary support, and higher-level framework conditions. We have collaborated with national and regional public authorities, members of the European Union (Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, Slovak Republic), looking at practices in people management, organisation structures, strategic planning and implementation, beneficiary support, and higher-level framework conditions. Over the years, we have collaborated with over 10 national and regional public authorities in Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, etc.

The programme aims to strengthen the capabilities of national and regional public authorities in managing and deploying public investment funds for regional development. We work with authorities to identify administrative capacity gaps and design and implement a precise and realistic capacity-building action plan. We then consolidate lessons learned from these efforts, developing policy tools for use by a broad range of institutions wishing to improve their ability to manage public investment funds.

The OECD has developed an analytical framework with four dimensions to analyse the challenges and capacity gaps confronting national and regional authorities in the administration and management of public investment funds. 

The OEDC developed a structured and practical framework centred on four pillars. The framework can help managing authorities across the EU enhance their beneficiary capacity building activities, while also providing insights for other public investment programmes, their fund managers and fund recipients.