The global objectives of the evaluation were:
a) to provide the relevant external and co-operation services and other impacted services of the EU (FPI, EEAS, DEVCO, NEAR) with an independent assessment of the achievement of the intended results of EU election observation missions and
b) to identify key lessons and forward looking recommendations in order to improve future actions in this field.
The specific objectives of the evaluation were as follows:
a) The evaluation will assess EU election observation activities worldwide during the period January 2012–June 2016, using two of the standard five DAC criteria for evaluating Development Assistance, namely those of effectiveness and impact. As the evaluation should reflect a results-oriented management approach, these two DAC criteria were selected being the most relevant for this purpose.
b) The difference of this evaluation, compared to the wider one on the EIDHR in the context of the Mid Term Review Report, is that it is more focused on effectiveness and impact and takes also into consideration the beneficiaries' side with field visits of the evaluators in countries in which EU election observation has been conducted. This evaluation has also a shorter time span.