Participants living in a rural area should be counted as “other disadvantaged” only when the area in which they reside is recognised nationally as disadvantaged. This means that in 2017 a person may be reported as homeless or from a rural area (or even both) and as other disadvantaged at the same time. Note that it should be ensured that the same criteria and definitions are applied across all ESF programmes in the country. Thus, a clear definition and appropriate guidance should be provided to all organisations in charge of data collection (e.g. project promoters or beneficiaries) in order to ensure consistency of data (see section 4.3 section of Annex D of the EC guidance on monitoring and evaluation).