ADE, created in 1990, specialises in assisting private and public decision-makers in the formulation of rational economic decisions and in monitoring their implementation. In accordance with its mission statement, ADE intervenes at every stage of the decision-making process from data collection, processing and analysis for diagnostic study through to advice on strategic orientation. It provides assistance throughout the cycle, support for project execution including any studies required to that end, monitoring of interventions, and evaluation of projects, programmes and policies.

To comply with its goal, ADE aims to pursue a general objective of maintaining and strengthening its recognized position of excellence within its complementary and mutually -supportive areas of expertise.

Support to economic decision-making covers an extremely wide range of themes and services; market and client needs evolve in line with the dominant policies and issues at stake in the society. ADE strives to identify the areas where it can, on the one hand, offer its acquired competences and resources and, on the other hand, strengthen them inter alia by maximizing synergies and complementarities between the services provided and the themes covered.

ADE’s three main areas of concentration are:

• Evaluation of public programmes and policies
• Support to macro-economic reforms
• Spatial development and competitiveness

To keep abreast of market developments and to ensure that emerging knowledge is absorbed into its three focal areas, ADE also operates on a wider range of services and sectors. These are selected with a view to:

• exploring new areas;
• strengthening existing specialisms;
• developing complementarities with current areas;

and are mainly conducted through the management of framework contracts and specialized thematic interventions.