NRN Self-Assessment Profiles

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic has established its NRN by allocating responsibilities at both central and regional levels. The NRN operates within the Managing Authority of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) (a department of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic), which is responsible for the decision-making and control functions. The Secretariats of the NRN (NRN regional offices) are responsible for the executive function. The Coordination Group of the Ministry of Agriculture (coordination of activities within the Ministry since 2013) and the NRN Coordination Committee (composed of representatives of partners such as governmental and non-governmental organisations) have an advisory function. Within the NRN, thematic working groups at regional and central level are also established.

Assessment of NRN performance

A basic assessment of NRN activities is carried out within the Annual Report on the progress of the 2007-2013 RDP, which is approved by the European Commission every year. This report is available to the public on the RDP website (eAGRI.cz/dotace). NRN activities and current outputs are presented and assessed twice a year by members of the Monitoring Committee of the RDP.

Further assessment and feedback to the NRN are provided at the meetings of the Coordination Group that have taken place since 2013. During these meetings suggestions have also been made for possible amendments in the NRN’s operation in order to make sure that the NRN contributes to the ‘sectoral agenda’ of various Ministry departments responsible for rural development and RDP implementation, in an effective way.

The NRN Coordination Committee holds annual meetings to discuss the Annual Implementation Plans of the NRN and review the activities of the previous year. The Coordination Committee has the opportunity to assess proposed new NRN activities and to provide suggestions for further activities, focusing on the needs and problems of committee members and the sectors that they represent. There are regular meetings at the regional level between the staff of the NRN and regional partners. In these meetings previously implemented activities are evaluated and activities are proposed for the next period.

Stakeholder surveys

Within the 2012 external report entitled "Evaluation of existing implementation of NRN" a quantitative on-line questionnaire survey targeted at members and partners of the NRN was conducted. At the end of 2013 a questionnaire survey is planned with regard to the Magazine “Rural”, published by the NRN in order to get users’ feedback. All partners of the NRN and other rural stakeholders who are regular readers (of the electronic or printed version of the magazine) will be contacted.

Network Evaluation

The "Evaluation of existing implementation of NRN" was an independent assessment of the effectiveness of the existing work of the National Rural Network and aimed to formulate recommendations with regard to more efficient operation of the network & its activities, efficient management processes, and the preparation for the programming period of 2014-2020.

The project was implemented in two phases:

• Analytical phase: research of documents related to the implementation of the NRN; structured interviews with relevant staff from the Ministry of Agriculture; mapping and analysis of key implementation processes of the NRN; implementation of a quantitative on-line survey of members / partners of the NRN; identification of critical success factor (CSF) for the effective management of NRN implementation.
• Proposal phase: proposals to increase the efficiency of NRN implementation; verification of proposals with partners of the NRN (guided discussion); proposals to eliminate risks.

This evaluation of network implementation sought to answer the following questions:

• What is the current scope of the NRN to meet the objectives in the Action Plan? What goals have already been achieved or are going to be achieved?
• Do networking activities contribute adequately to the objectives of the program document or to the European Network for Rural Development?
• Are there some targets which might not be reached or where it could be possible to achieve better results? If yes, what are they and what are the reasons for this situation?
• How might it be possible to eliminate any factors hindering the achievement of the objectives?
• What measures can be recommended to increase the efficiency of the NRN in the programming period 2014-2020?

Additional information

The NRN also receives useful suggestions to improve its communication and promotion of the RDP activities from the thematic working group (TWG) on publicity, which was established internally. The group brings together employees of the Ministry involved in PR, the Managing Authority of the RDP and representatives from important NRN partners. Members of other TWGs give the NRN suggestions to refine its activity from the expert point of view, thus it is also an evaluation of the appropriate focus of NRN activities.