FINAL REPORT ASSESSMENT

The operational analysis will consist in verifying the fulfilment of the Specific Objective, the achievement of the Action’s result, the mobilisation of the resources, the quality of the information, the necessity of the costs and how reasonable they are for the implementation of the Action.

The operational analysis is carried out both by the ECHO HQ and the TA in the field.
ECHO HQ and TA will base their analysis on the information provided in the report and also on the conclusions of their monitoring.

When the quality of the report does not permit to verify the achievement of the results of the Action, ECHO HQ may decide to send a request for complementary information. In exceptional cases, ECHO may also decide to carry out an additional monitoring.

When the final report and possible monitoring show that the Action did achieve its results and that the partner fulfilled its obligations, ECHO will conclude its analysis by accepting the report.

When the analysis of the final report and conclusions of monitoring visits show that something went wrong in the Action (e.g. Action was not fully implemented, was implemented with delays or poorly, and if the partners failed to communicate with ECHO on the difficulties encountered), ECHO will carry out further analysis to find out the reasons for the lack of achievements.

Indeed, the lack of achievements might be the result of external constraints or might be the result of shortcomings in the partner's management of the Action:

• If the lack of achievement is due to external constraints, ECHO will check whether the partner took the necessary steps to mitigate the impacts of those external factors. If this is the case, ECHO will most probably accept the report. On the other hand, if the partner did not take mitigating measures or did not react in a responsible way, ECHO may decide on a reduction of its contribution after having requested clarification from the partner.

• If the lack of achievement is due to shortcomings in the partner’s management of the Action, ECHO will have to carry out a deeper analysis to assess whether some costs should be disallowed or whether a reduction of ECHO grant should be applied.

There is no strict rules and threshold to apply in case of lack of performance in an Action. Each analysis will be made in relation to the specific context.

The financial analysis will consist in verifying the eligibility of the costs and establishing the final amount to be paid. An important element of this analysis is to make the link between the necessity of the costs against the actual achievements of the Action.

At this stage, the level of controls will depend also on the results of the risk assessment.