General Technical Support for the Implementation of France’s Recovery and Resilience Plan

The Commission supported the French Directorate-General Treasury and Economic Policy in coordinating, steering the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan. It focused on aspects of: risk identification and evaluation; improvement of data collection and storage mechanisms; enhancement of risk assessment and risk dashboarding; improvement of project management and coordination mechanisms; communication; and capacity-building activities for beneficiaries and stakeholders. 

Context

The significant resources made available under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) require public administrations to have sufficient capacity to effectively coordinate and monitor the overall implementation of the recovery and resilience plans. To this end, France received technical support to further improve its capacity to effectively coordinate and monitor the overall implementation of the plan amongst stakeholders, including authorities at central and decentralized level, and to enhance its capacity for risk identification and evaluation, data collection and storage, risk assessment, project management and coordination, as well as communication.

Support Delivered

The technical assistance to the RPR has been focused on a proven methodology:

• Situation assessments and framings based on understanding the context, challenges, objectives, and needs of stakeholders (analysis of the current state of monitoring systems, project management, reporting, and control), including frequent exchanges and workshops with all involved actors. 
• Benchmarks conducted in close collaboration with Deloitte teams involved in the implementation of RRPs in other EU member states (Germany and the Czech Republic) to identify best practices and lessons learned. 
• Targeted recommendations on each strategic topic within the mission scope (risk identification and evaluation, data collection and storage, risk identification dashboard, project management and coordination, etc.). 
• Improvements and strengthening of existing systems to implement the RRP.
• Implementation of a robust documentary corpus (procedures, practical guides, notes, etc.). 
• Tailored tools and training. 

Result achieved

The main outcomes achieved from this entire mission are as follows:

• Enhancement of the risk identification and evaluation. The project facilitated establishing general implementation risk maps for the DG Treasury and Economic Policy and risk maps specifics to the RRP measures and training the RRP department to independently conduct the exercise.
• Improvement of data collection and storage mechanisms. To address this, a best practice guide was developed for collecting and communicating funding requests, streamlining the process of collection, classification, anonymization, and communication of beneficiary lists and supporting documents. 
• Enhancement of risk assessment and risk dashboarding. To achieve this, recommendations were provided to improve risk monitoring dashboards, along with a prototype dashboard for project risk monitoring and a best practice guide for their production. Special focus was given to mitigating the risk of double financing.
• Improving project management and coordination mechanisms. Communication support was enhanced through the implementation of communication rules and procedures, a toolbox for communication actions. 
• Capacity-building activities for beneficiaries and stakeholders. The project contributed to this objective through benchmarking and an in-depth analysis of hydrogen development strategies in six EU Member States comparable to France.