RISK MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES OF EUROPEAN SOCIAL FUND UNDER CURRENT PROGRAMMING PERIOD 2014-2020 IN ROMANIA

This paper aim first to inventor the actual situation of risk management in the implementation of ESF (European Social Fund) programmes in Romania. ESF is implemented in Romania in 2014-2020 programming period through Human Capital Operational Programme and Administrative Capacity Operational Programme. These Operational Programmes (OPs) are both now in the operational phase, with new projects just granted and starting, a lot of calls for proposals yet in the evaluation and contracting phase and many calls for proposals ongoing. Based on the previous published papers/works focused on the former Operational Programmes (OP) from 2007-2013 programming period as a starting point, this paper will translate their conclusions and update these under actual conditions for programmes and projects implementation. Romania has implemented in 2007-2015 two OP co-financed by ESF (Human Resource Development OP and Administrative Capacity Development OP). These OPs are now in the closing phase and actors involved in OPs and projects can draw some conclusions & lessons learned from risk management issues in order to avoid repeating it or to develop resiliency and recovering measurements. One of the main major issue in the 2007-2013 programming period was the lack of a scientific approach in risk management at the programmes and the projects levels since the beginning. Only in the last years were performed qualitative and quantitative analysis, with ongoing studies performed and thus the actual programming period could benefit from scientific inputs. Therefore the actors involved (ministries & agencies, beneficiaries) can access now academic studies and tools in order to perform a more suitable risk management.