Results Focus

A country's national vision needs to link its overall aims to concrete development results, in a way which enables movement towards the aims of that vision to be assessed, through progress on the tangible, development results. The process of defining a long-term vision and a national development strategy therefore includes identifying desired goals in terms of quality of life among potential beneficiaries of development assistance and setting realistic, monitorable, time-bound and preferably quantitative targets, and progress indicators related to those goals. These development results will necessarily be derived from the particular challenges that the country faces. However, since a key aim of the CDF is more effective and sustainable poverty reduction, they are likely to be in the same areas as the MDGs.

A results focus requires extending attention farther down the “results chain” from inputs and short-term outputs to medium-term outcomes. It also requires expanding attention to circumstances and behaviors beyond the institutional boundaries of individual development assistance agencies and even beyond the boundaries of the recipient government and individual projects, to the intended final beneficiaries of development assistance. Finally, a results focus also requires concerted efforts to disseminate information about results among stakeholders in the development process to promote accountability and to create feedback loops so that information can be used to adjust strategies and to improve projects, programs, and policies.

Lessons of experience:

Critics have long argued that development assistance agencies have been excessively focused on increasing their inputs and outputs to development efforts, especially disbursements of funds, without adequate regard to “results-on-theground”, i.e., outcomes in terms of the quality of life and economic productivity of people in developing countries. Attention to inputs and outputs and especially disbursements is understandable. They are easier to measure than outcomes and more subject to control by the provider. And, to the extent that development assistance agencies believe that a key contribution to development efforts is the transfer of financial resources, disbursements are an important measure of that contribution. However, counting inputs, outputs, and disbursements alone is not an appropriate measure of the effectiveness of development assistance.

Most importantly, excessive focus on inputs and outputs has weakened the incentives among both development assistance agencies and the recipients of external financial assistance to ensure that resources are used in ways that will achieve sustained developmental results. More generally, the pressures to disburse have weakened the willingness of development assistance agencies to discriminate between countries with institutions and policies such that external financial support will be well used and those in which funds are likely to be wasted. In other words, it has reduced the incentive for selectivity in the allocation of development assistance resources.

Attention to inputs and outputs rather than outcomes has also contributed to the under-development of institutions in developing countries for financial accountability, for measuring economic and social conditions, and for monitoring and evaluation of public programs and policies. There has been a vicious circle in which the attention to inputs and outputs has prevented growth of capacity to measure outcomes, thus reinforcing dependence on input and output measures. All these concerns make it especially important to shift the focus of measurement to results, and to build the capacity to do so.

For an overview on progress in implementation of the CDF principles, see CDF Progress Report 2005, Enabling Country Capacity to Achieve Results; OR click here for detailed CDF implementation progress by country.