Final Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the Daphne Programme (2000 - 2003) {SEC(2004) 1595}
Date: 2004-12-22
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU programme, action programme, child, domestic violence, violence, woman, young person

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 

Brussels, 22.12.2004 
COM(2004) 824 final 

FINAL REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL 

on the Daphne Programme (2000 - 2003) 

{SEC(2004) 1595} 

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1. 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

This  report  presents  the  progress  made  by  the  Daphne  Programme  since  its  approval  in 
January  2000  and  a  summary  of  its  main  achievements,  as  required  by  Article  9(2)  of  the 
Decision.  Daphne  aims  to  address  a  widespread  and  growing  concern  at  both  public  and 
political  levels  about  the  issue  of  violence.  All  types  of  violence  against  children,  young 
people  and  women  are  covered,  including  domestic  violence,  violence  in  schools,  violence 
towards minority groups such as homosexuals, handicapped people, ethnic minorities, etc. 

The  Daphne  Programme  is  one  of  the  building  blocks  of  the  European  Commission  for 
combating  crime,  as  part  of  the  Union’s  political  ambition  to  set  up  an  area  of  freedom, 
security  and  justice.  Other  programmes  and  actions  exist  in  order  to  fight  specific  offences, 
such  as  illegal  content  of  Internet,  trafficking  in  human  beings  or  various  types  of 
discrimination. Daphne liaises with them to ensure adequate co-ordination and consistency. 

The programme 

During their seven years of existence (1997-2003), the Daphne Initiative and the subsequent 
Programme met with a response far greater than could have been expected. More than 2200 
proposals were received requesting around €195 million. This overwhelming response shows 
that  the  Programme  clearly  meets  a  deeply  felt  need  within  the  voluntary  sector.  A  total  of 
303 projects were funded during the same period for a total EC budget of €31 million. 

In  order  to  achieve  this  in  the  best  possible  conditions,  the  Commission  pays  particular 
attention  to  monitoring  progress  and  evaluating  the  results  achieved  by  the  projects  funded. 
All projects are monitored and assessed individually during their implementation phase. 

The results 

The long list of project activities, including innovative methods for prevention, co-operation, 
exchanges,  networking,  developing  new  models  and  sharing  best  practice,  have  already 
started to have multiplier effects on NGO and institutional activities in Europe (as evidence 
by the study in Annex). 

It  shows  that  organisations  have  gained  greatly  from  their  participation  in  European 
partnerships.  Whether  by  learning  more  about  the  substantive  issues  or  by  improving  co-
ordination  and  management  skills  or  their  external  image,  they  all  came  out  with  increased 
stature.  The  networking  mechanism  in  itself  already has an impact:  by bringing groups into 
contact  with  one  another  and  prompting  them  to  collaborate,  it  has  made  a  significant 
difference  to  the  work  of  organisations  which,  by  their  nature,  more  often  tend  to  be  in 
competition.  In  turn,  these  partnerships  have  led  to  more  effective  programming,  moving 
away from duplication and wasted resources. As a consequence, the Daphne Programme can 
be seen as successful in continuing the mobilisation of the NGO sector at all levels, resulting 
in  many  new  partnerships  and  alliances  that  are  working  together  for  more  comprehensive 
European policies on violence. 

For the purpose of this report, an evaluation of the seven years of activities of Daphne (1997-
2003) was carried out (see annexe).1 

1 

External evaluation carried out by Bureau Van Dijk, Brussels (2004) not published 

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Some of the most interesting findings are : 

•  There  is  a  reasonable  balance  in  the  funded  projects  between  the  various  categories  of 

beneficiaries: children, young people and women ; 

•  The  220  projects  analysed  in  detail  produced  700  tangible  outputs  (e.g.  studies,  good 

practice guides, training manuals, CD-ROM, TV or radio spots); 

•  In 65% of the projects under the Daphne Programme, the objective is the exchange of good 
practice.  In  terms  of  results,  34%  of  outputs  produced  contributed  to  the  achievement  of 
this  objective.  This  illustrates  the  added  value  of  Daphne,  which  reinforced  the 
dissemination  of  a  number  of  good  practices  at  the  level  of  the  European  Union.  In 
addition, 1 project in 2 produced results that are directly applicable, such as field actions or 
training modules. 

•  With regard to the impact of these results on the project partners, 66% of the projects have 
now adopted new practices in their current work. 80% of the partners recognise that their 
expertise,  know-how  and  involvement  in  transnational  networks/partnerships  have 
improved. 

•  In  terms  of  the  impact  on  the  end  beneficiaries  (children,  young  people  and  women),  in 
more than half of the projects, these populations benefited from better access to assistance 
and improved their capacity to face the situations by themselves. This result is of primary 
importance,  because  it  goes  beyond  the  concept  of  assistance  to  victims  towards  the 
concept of rehabilitation and empowerment. 

•  The  last  finding  that  is  worth  mentioning  is  that  12%  of  the  projects  had  an  impact  on 
legislation and/or led to policy change. Given the fact that the primary aim of Daphne is 
not  to  propose  legislative  measures  or  to  change  policies,  this  is  a  side-effect  due  to  the 
strong commitment and dedication of some organisations. This can be seen as a plus. 

As will be detailed in this report, some findings of the final evaluation revealed areas where 
there was room for improvement. Some of those had already been anticipated in the structure 
of  the  Daphne  II  Programme,  such  as  the  creation  of  a  helpdesk  or  the  increased  focus  on 
dissemination. 

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2. 

PURPOSE OF THE REPORT 

Article  9(3)  of  Parliament  and  Council  Decision  293/2000/EC2  setting  up  the  Daphne 
Programme  requires  the  Commission  to  present  an  evaluation  report  to  the  European 
Parliament and the Council, at the end of the programme. 

This report presents the achievements of the Daphne Programme since its approval in January 
2000,  including  an  in-depth  analysis  of  the  results  achieved  under  the  former  Daphne 
Initiative (1997-1999) and the first two years of implementation of the Daphne Programme, 
and an analysis of the projects funded in 2002 and 2003, but not their achievements as they 
have not yet been completed. As a consequence, this report covers seven years of activities, 
corresponding to 303 projects and involving more than 1500 organisations. It therefore goes 
beyond the requirement of Article 9(3) of Decision 293/2000/EC. 

3. 

RESULTS AND IMPACT OF DAPHNE 

For  the  purpose  of  this  report,  an  evaluation  of  the  seven  years  of  Daphne  activities  (1997-
2003)  was  carried  out,  the  methodology  of  which  is  explained  in  annex  1.  The  main 
characteristic of this study is that it is exhaustive: all projects (303) from the Initiative (1997-
1999) and the Programme (2000-2003) have been analysed. The conclusions were as follows: 

“The  Initiative  and  Programme  objectives  were  and  remain  relevant  to  the  needs  at  their 
origin i.e. protecting children, young people and women from violence and preventing it. Both 
the outputs and the impacts contribute to achieving each objective of the Daphne Programme, 
so  confirming  its  effectiveness.  The  efficiency  of  the  programme  is  evidenced  by  the 
impressive  outputs  and  impacts,  compared  to  the  modest  resources  allocated.  Their 
sustainability once the projects have ended is rather weak, because of insufficiently planned 
and targeted dissemination and difficulties with post-project funding”. 

2 

OJ L 34, 9.2.2000, p. 1. 

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The findings can be summarised as follows: 

Needs 

Outcom es 

Violence against children, 
young people and w om en 

Results 

Daphne Initiative and Program m e 

Objectives 

Inputs 

Activities 

Outputs 

Relevance: 
appropriate

Efficiency: excellent value for m oney 

Effectiveness: good for both outputs & im pacts 

Sustainability: w eak 

3.1.  Relevance 

The relevance of the  Daphne Programme is evaluated by  the extent to which  the objectives 
are and remain appropriate to the context, i.e. to the social needs the programme is meant to 
satisfy. 

Relevance of the Daphne objectives to the social needs 

The fight against violence combines a large number of initiatives and actions. Daphne does 
not aim to directly reduce the number of victims of violence. Instead, the programme aims to 
support  organisations  whose  actions  contribute  to  protecting  against  violence,  preventing  it 
and assisting victims. This explains the key role played by NGOs in Daphne since its origin. 

The Daphne objectives were defined in general terms so that they would  be valid for many 
different types of violence. There are six Daphne objectives: 

•  Support to multidisciplinary networks; 

•  Exchange of good practice; 

•  Studies, research and data collection; 

•  Information campaigns; 

•  Information sources; 

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•  Recognition and reporting of violence. 

By being independent from the areas of violence covered, these objectives are not influenced 
by priorities set annually on aspects of violence. In addition, these objectives are instruments 
rather  than  objectives,  stricto  sensu.  In  fact,  they  contribute  to  the  more  general  meta-
objectives that implicitly underpin the programme, i.e. European response to violence through 
networking  and  exchange  of  best  practice,  prevention  and  protection  of  victims,  increased 
awareness. 

3.2.  Effectiveness 

The  effectiveness  of  the  Daphne  Programme  is  assessed  by  the  extent  to  which  the  outputs 
and impacts contribute to the achievement of the Daphne objectives.  

For each project, a link was made between its outputs and the Daphne objectives they support. 
Out of 699 outputs, 601 strongly or very strongly support the Daphne objectives as follows: 

  Exchange of good practice  

Studies, research or  
data collection 

Support to multi - 
disciplinary networks   

Information campaigns  

Recognition and reporting  
on violence   
Information sources   

5%   

34%

20%

15%

13%   

13%   

0

5    10    15   20    25 30 35 40

% 

37%

34%

38%

28%

26%

26%

19%   

12%

31%   

12%

16%   

11%

23%   

25%   

13%

17%

19%   

17%   

Graph  1  :  Contribution  of  outputs  to  Programme’s  objectives  (N=601  outputs  with  high  or  very  high 
contribution: Conferences, seminars, workshops     ; Studies, reports & books     ; Information materials    ; 
Guidelines, training packages, manuals       ; Websites, CDs &CD-ROMs      ) 

The  above  graph  should  be  interpreted  as  follows:  15%  of  the  outputs  contribute  to  the 
objective  ‘Support  to  multi-disciplinary  networks’,  and  they  are  composed  of  38%  of 
“Conferences,  seminars  and  workshops”,  16%  of  “studies,  reports  and  books”  and  11%  of 
“Information materials”. 

The  striking  figure  here  is  that  the  objective  “exchange  of  good  practice”  is  supported  by 
more  than  a  third  of  the  outputs.  This  shows  a)  the  importance  of  that  objective  for  the 
participants and b) the real added value of the Daphne Programme in transferring knowledge 
from country to country and from organisation to organisation throughout Europe. 

Looking  at  the  diagram  the  other  way  round,  it  appears  that  encouraging  people  to  work 
together (by “Conference, seminars and workshops”) is the output that contributes most to the 
objectives  and  promotes  all  of  them.  The  output  “Studies,  reports  and  books”  also 
significantly contributes to all the objectives. 

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It is also interesting to note that “Training packages and manuals” has an influence on three 
objectives, confirming the need to keep training high on the agenda. 

In addition, each programme objective is also supported by impacts as shown in point 3.3 of 
the  Annex.  It  is  clear  from  that  diagram  that  the  main  impacts  support  one  or  more 
programme objectives and that all programme objectives are supported by impacts. 

The  effectiveness  of  the  Daphne  Programme  is  thus  ensured  by  the  contributions  of  both 
outputs and impacts. 

3.3.  Efficiency 

The programme efficiency measures the relation between inputs on one hand and outputs and 
impacts on the other hand, with a view to assessing the value for money. 

A programme like Daphne is, however, not a production unit, the costs and benefits of which 
can  be  precisely  estimated  in  monetary  terms.  Although  most  of  the  inputs  are  known  –  in 
terms of funds - it is meaningless to put a monetary value on the outputs or impacts: e.g. the 
value  of  enabling  children  and  women  to  protect  themselves  better  and  prevent  violence 
cannot  be  expressed  in  commercial  terms.  We  can,  however,  gain  indications  of  the 
usefulness of the programme, its outputs and impacts. 

We have assessed efficiency by following a pragmatic approach, making the best use of the 
different  kinds  of  information  available  and  focusing  on  the  utility  of  the  programme.  The 
representative  sample  of  148  completed  projects  analysed  can  be  characterised  by  the 
following basic facts and figures: 

•  The  sample  represents  a  total  budget  of  nearly  €20  million  (up  to  2001),  i.e.  about 

€133,000 per project and €23,500 per participant.  

•  The EU funding represents some 75% of these budgets, i.e. some €17,600 per participant. 
On average this means the EU is funding 2 full-time equivalents (FTE) for each project for 
one year or 0.35 FTE per participating organisation, representing on average 0.8% of their 
personnel. 

•  For  two  thirds  of  the  projects,  the  remaining  25%  of  the  budget  is  covered  by  internal 
funds  only.  Ten  percent  of  the  projects  only  have  access  to  external  funding  and  one 
project  out  of  four  declares  a  mix  of  internal  and  external  funds.  The  funding  is  often 
complemented by extra work from the participating NGOs as well as by volunteers. The 
volume of this effort is obviously difficult to evaluate. 

•  On average, each project generated 5 outputs that contributed significantly to achieving the 
six main programme objectives. A very impressive volume of material was disseminated 
by 98% of the projects and events were organised by 90% of them. The outputs and their 
dissemination  contributed  to  producing  impacts  on  target  groups,  end  beneficiaries,  the 
general public and decision-makers. 

•  The  148  projects  analysed  involved  1227  organisations.  Participation  to  a  project  had  an 
impact  on  97%  of  them,  mainly  in  terms  of  improved  expertise,  improved  networking 
capacities  or  adoption  of  good  practice.  Participation  in  Daphne  has  therefore  had  a 
definite and positive effect on these organisations. 

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These achievements therefore represent substantial value, particularly in view of the limited 
funding  provided  by  the  Commission.  The  evaluation  did  check  whether  there  was  any 
significant  relationship  between  the  budget  size,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  nature  and 
frequency  of  outputs  and  impacts  on  the  other,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was 
none.  This  is,  at  least  partly,  due  to  the  fact  that  most  participants  in  Daphne  consider  the 
budget as a tool. They invest voluntary effort and attribute high value to the project results. 

From the evidence above (and others detailed in Annex), we can state that the programme is 
efficient, i.e. with limited EU support, significant achievements and impacts were realised. 

3.4.  Daphne implementation and delivery mechanisms 

Co-ordinators  were  asked  to  give  their  opinion  on  the  Daphne  submission  and  contract 
procedures,  the  Daphne  website,  the  support  from  Daphne  during  the  project  and  the 
evaluation  and  monitoring  systems.  Complete data can be found in Annex 1. However, one 
element is worth mentioning here, this is that for most of the topics, at least two thirds of the 
project  co-ordinators  are  satisfied.  Overall,  the  levels  of  satisfaction  were  slightly  lower  for 
the Initiative than for the Programme. 

The  analysis  of  the  level  of  satisfaction  of  “transparency  of  the  selection  process”  and  of 
“quality of EC support during the preparation phase” over time shows that a larger proportion 
of  project  co-ordinators  were  satisfied  over  the  last  few  years  (from  2001  to  2003)  than  in 
previous years, which is encouraging. 

Daphne mechanisms 

% of satisfied project co-ordinators over time 

1997 

1998 

1999 

2000 

2001 

2002 

2003 

Transparency of selection process 

58% 

52% 

33% 

50% 

66% 

61% 

63% 

Quality  of  EC  support  during 
preparation phase 

35% 

61% 

59% 

56% 

63% 

79% 

83% 

4. 

CONCLUSIONS 

The  purpose  of  the  Daphne  Programme  is  to  support  the  work  of  organisations  (including 
NGOs)  and  public  local  authorities  in  protecting  women  and  children  and  in  preventing 
violence  against  them.  Daphne  adds  value  at  European  Community  level  to  this  work  and 
encourages  the  exchange  of  ideas  and  best  practice  through  the  formation  of  networks  and 
partnerships  and  the  implementation  of  pilot  projects.  These  provide  opportunities  for 
learning, for the sharing of information, the transfer of skills and comprehensive coverage of 
problem  areas,  all  of  which  are  designed  to  be  in  the  best  interests  of  those  who  suffer 
violence. 

In addition, Daphne supports actions which raise awareness about violence among the general 
public and those at risk, as well as actions involving research and seminars on the subject of 
violence. Importantly, all this work is done through new European networks, and with a view 
to collaborative European action and best-practice exchange. 

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Experience  gained  by  the  implementation  of  the  Daphne  programme  together  with  an 
extensive  impact  assessment  of  completed  projects,  a  survey  of  ongoing  projects  and 
interviews with stakeholders produced the following conclusions: 

•  “The  Initiative  and  Programme  objectives  were  and  remain  relevant  to  the  needs  at  their 
origin i.e. protecting children, young people and women from violence and preventing it. 
Both  the  outputs  and  the  impacts  contribute  to  achieving  each  objective  of  the  Daphne 
Programme, so confirming its effectiveness. The efficiency of the programme is evidenced 
by the impressive outputs and impacts, compared to the modest resources allocated. Their 
sustainability  once  the  projects  have  ended  is  rather  weak,  because  of  insufficiently 
planned and targeted dissemination and difficulties with post-project funding”. 

•  With  its  high  level  of  response  (more  than  2200  proposals  received,  requesting  around 

€195 million), Daphne clearly meets a deeply felt need within society. 

•  With  around  700  outputs,  the  303  funded  projects  have  provided  an  initial  response  and 
have seriously contributed to raising awareness among the target groups concerned. They 
have also played a part in the empowerment of a number of victims, increased awareness 
of  how  to  access  assistance,  reinforced  the  services  offered  and  contributed  to  the 
understanding of some mechanisms of violence, etc. 

•  These  outputs  have  had  an  impact  not  only  on  the  partners,  target  groups  and  end 
beneficiaries,  but  also  on  the  slowly  changing  social  perceptions  of  violence  and  the 
development  of  EU  and  national  policies.  New  models  and  methodologies  are  being 
explored and developed by public institutions, all contributing to the creation of a common 
framework and convergence of policies throughout the Member States. 

•  Another finding worth mentioning is that 12% of the projects had an impact on legislation 
and/or  led  to  policy  change.  Given  the  fact  that  the  primary  aim  of  Daphne  is  not  to 
propose  legislative  measures  or  to  change  policies,  this  is  a  side-effect  due  to  the  strong 
commitment and dedication of some organisations. This can be seen as a plus. 

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