The joint Council of Europe and European Commission's Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey was embarking on Phase II at the time the evaluation was commissioned. Working with Blomeyer & Sanz, PIL's Elma Paulauskaitė evaluation aimed to synthesize findings and lessons learned across all project and thematic evaluations, and extract key findings relating to relevance, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the Facility. PIL conducted interviews with DG NEAR geodesk, rule of law and gender-focused personnel ( and the mission in Albania, covering selected actions and partners.