Mid-term evaluation and last partner meeting of the year

Last week, the Centralparks consortium held its last partnership meeting of the year 2020. The online event was organised as a mid-term evaluation of the project progress, and was attended by representatives of the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Joint Secretariat, representatives of the Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention as well as various Associated Partners of the project.

The aim of the meeting was to look back on the achievements and overall performance of the past 1,5 years of Centralparks, as well as to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the project. This was a chance for the partnership to receive feedback from the Joint Secretariat about how to improve the planning, appraisal and implementation of project activities.

The mid-term review meeting was very valuable to draw initial lessons about project implementation and management, and to harmonise the project objectives. Every work package leader have presented their progress, reflected on challenges, and discussed planned activities together with the rest of the participants. This way, the meeting helped the partners in identifying and understanding in-depth the successes to date and problems that may arise in the next year, with special attention to the still very present Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, the event created the opportunity to provide the Centralparks Associated Partners with an external, objective view on the project status, its relevance, the effectiveness of its management, technical implementation and communication, and indication of whether the project is likely to achieve its objectives.

The meeting was also a good platform for the attendees outside the project consortium to provide to the Centralparks partners some recommendations for capturing additional opportunities, as well as for measures to overall improve the project performance for the remainder of the project duration. 

The participants also touched on the subject of how to replicate the lessons learnt from project implementation to the the broader policy environment. Moreover, the deviations that have occurred in Centralparks’ work plan due to the Covid-19 outbreak have been discussed and various mitigation measures have been taken into consideration. Overall, the meeting was very fruitful, and the Centralparks team achieved great success in keeping the collaboration effective and strong over distance.