There was a rural focus in the application of the Fund, which comprised $43 million to be disbursed through the local labour offices for locally provided services related to job creation. The Fund supported six types of activity for counteracting unemployment and stimulating employment in largely rural areas with severe social and economic difficulties and which required a strong stimulus for development and redirection. The application of the Model Services component of the project provided a base for good practice in other European Social Fund projects within an Objective 1 Integrated Programme.

The WYG International team of Polish specialist advisors in each region and in Warsaw were supported by a pool of international advisers who provided advice and support to regional labour offices and the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. A key feature of the project was the development of the ability to track and monitor the immediate and longer term effect of training and employment projects financed through the Fund.

In the early part of the project, WYG International developed and put in place a comprehensive and practical Management Information System (MIS) for the projects, which integrated information from the regional labour offices with that supplied by employers, providing continuous feedback on the local labour market and the impact of the projects financed through the Fund.

The information gathered by the system was used to provide immediate monitoring information on project progress in each locality and each region. It was also used to inform the systematic assessment and evaluation of project outcomes and impacts which was an integral part of the technical assistance project and which was designed to provide policy and practice feedback to regional labour offices and other stakeholders.