In the context of the ETF work on System Change and Lifelong Learning, the assignment aimed to support ETF in developing a conceptual and methodological approach to assess and analyse the policy progress of countries towards establishing and running skills development systems that provide opportunities for lifelong learning. The assignment complemented and built on ETF’s ongoing work in establishing a New Monitoring Framework (NMF), which defined system monitoring dimensions by which countries' performance could be mapped and subsequently analysed. This assignment aimed to set up an approach that could look into the ‘black-box’ and contextualise and/or explain the system performance of countries by examining specific policy areas associated with well-functioning LLL systems.