Dansk udviklingsbistands succes er blevet målt og vejet
For anden gang kan Danida nu sætte tal på, hvor stor en del af bistanden, der lykkes. Og det er opmuntrende læsning: 81 procent af den bilaterale bistand nåede i 2004 sine mål, skriver udenrigsministeriet i en pressemeddelelse fredag.
Bilateral bistand er den udviklingsbistand, der gives direkte fra Danmark til et u-land, hvorimod multilateral bistand gives gennem en række internationale organisationer. Bag tallet 81 procent ligger flere års arbejde med at gøre bistanden mere målbar, for det er langt fra nogen enkel opgave.
Et eksempel på, hvad og hvordan der blev målt, er vandsektoren i Uganda: Tidligere vurderede man kvaliteten af den ugandesiske vandforsyning ved blot at måle den afstand, den enkelte familie har til rent drikkevand. Men det fortæller ikke noget om, hvorvidt brønden fungerer ordentligt, eller om vandet er rent eller beskidt.
Med de nye målinger får Uganda og Danida viden om, hvor mange dage familierne reelt har adgang til vand, om hvor rent vandet er, hvor mange mennesker der har adgang til latriner, og i hvor høj grad personer fra alle samfundslag har mulighed for at benytte landsbyens brønd. Bl.a. disse indikatorer giver tilsammen et grundigt billede af, hvor succesfuld bistanden er.
Målingerne er foretaget i de 15 lande, der modtager hovedparten af den danske bilaterale bistand, og det samlede billede viser, at 81 procent af de opstillede mål er nået tilfredsstillende eller meget tilfredsstillende.
Selv om der stadig er plads til at gøre målingerne endnu bedre, vurderer Danidas kontor for kvalitetssikring, at systemet i høj grad er blevet det værktøj, der kan dokumentere resultaterne af den danske bistand og øge effektiviteten.
En væsentlig faktor, der har bidraget til det positive resultat, er, at arbejdet med udviklingsbistand siden september 2003 er blevet decentraliseret. Tidligere blev mange beslutninger truffet i København, men i dag har ambassaderne fået en større beslutningskompetence.
Det vil sige, at beslutninger bliver truffet tættere på og i samarbejde med de mennesker, som bistanden handler om, og det har gjort bistanden mere effektiv.
Udviklingsminister Ulla Tørnæs (V) er meget tilfreds med rapportens konklusioner:
– En målopfyldelse på 81 procent er et flot samlet resultat, når man tænker på de vanskelige forhold, som udviklingsbistanden udføres under, siger ministeren og henviser bl.a. til den politiske uro i Bolivia og den kritiske situation i Nepal.
Udover den bilaterale bistand er den støtte, der fordeles gennem de multilaterale organisationer, blevet undersøgt.
I alt er samarbejdet med 13 multilaterale organisationer blevet gennemgået, og her er der især ros til FNs Udviklingsprogram UNDP og Verdensbanken. UNICEFs arbejde får derimod betegnelsen “mindre tilfredsstillende”, og også Den Afrikanske Udviklingsbank får kritik for ikke at være godt nok til stede i de enkelte lande.
Her Summary af rapporten
With the aim of improving aid effectiveness and ensuring accountability, since 2003, Danida has implemented a number of internal reforms.
These include far-reaching decentralisation of bilateral and multilateral development cooperation, the establishment of results contracts between Danidas central management and all Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) units, improved management systems, as well as better performance measurement.
The objective of the Annual Performance Report 2004 is to present and discuss the results, progress and constraints of Danish bilateral and multilateral development cooperation during 2004. The analyses are based on a series of tools, developed to enhance the quality of Danish development cooperation through a stronger focus on results.
Regarding the bilateral development cooperation, Performance Reviews (PRs) are a key management and quality assurance tool to highlight management issues, monitoring, and lessons learned within and across countries.
During 2004, PRs have observed a higher quality of programme documents after the decentralisation of Danida went into effect in September 2003, and second-generation sector programme support (SPS) and other new types of programmes are generally better integrated into national structures than first-generation SPS.
It is assessed that the decentralisation of responsibilities to Representations has been a key factor in this process, as the Representations have been able to act directly with national authorities and other donors without having to consult Copenhagen before entering into agreements.
At many Representations, it remains a challenge, however, to ensure the establishment of a common vision on alignment, donor harmonisation and aid modalities. PRs have also found that the number of sectors and intervention areas in each country programme remains rather high, and the programme design does not seem to have become less complex. This hampers alignment, and adds to the administrative costs of programmes.
In the formulation of new second-generation SPSs, a key challenge is to rethink the programme design with a view to reducing the substantial number of components and sub-components.
PRs have assessed the Representations internal organisation and the ongoing adjustment of organisational set-ups as a consequence of the decentralisation. New ways of delegating responsibilities and strengthening priority areas, taking the activities and staff qualification in each country into consideration, are being explored.
Although there can be no blueprint solutions, Representations are facing a number of common challenges, including the fundamental issue of establishing structures that make full use of the whole range of staff qualifications.
Thus, PRs have observed that many Representations may free up additional resources by optimising the combination of posted and national staff. Supplementing the information generated by the PRs, the Representations assessments of country programmes and sector-level progress show that achievements are generally seen to be satisfactory.
This is further substantiated by the reporting in Annual Business Plans on output indicators for all major programmes in the most important partner countries. In 2004, reporting on 326 output indicators was recieved, of which 215 were achieved at a “very satisfactory” level.
Representations have generally found the fulfilment of country programme objectives regarding gender equality, environment, and human rights and democracy to be “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory”. Ratings in sector assessments are also generally high: of 45 sector assesments conducted, 38 used the ratings “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory” to describe progress on gender equality.
The same two ratings were used in 34 assessments of progress towards considering the environment, and in 38 assessments of progress with regard to human rights and democracy. Sector assessments qualify the ratings by mentioning the sometimes adverse impact of external factors, beyond the control of the programmes.
In a number of cases, the assessments indicate that targets may need to be reviewed and strategies modified to adjust to changes in government policy, strategy or budget situation.
Such alerts to potential future issues enable better management both of the specific programme in question and of expectations and performance at the corporate level.
Regarding the multilateral development cooperation, organisation strategies and the associated annual action plans are the key tools for dialogue with the multilateral organisations supported.
To date, 16 organisation strategies have been approved, and overall progress towards the targets defined has been rated “satisfactory” for most
In some cases, however, efforts to address concerns such as decentralisation, trade and development, and utilisation of Danish resources have been rated “less satisfactory” or “not fulfilled”.
In 2004, the joint donor survey to monitor the performance of multilateral organisations (MOPAN) focussed on UNDP, African Development Bank (AfDB) and FAO, examining the use and quality of national partnerships and inter-agency partnerships.
UNDP came out as the most highly regarded of the three organisations,
as its efforts regarding national partnerships were strongly commended. AfDB came out worst, as its achievements both in terms of national partnerships and inter-agency dialogue are perceived to be constrained by its limited presence in individual partner countries.
A total of 57 assessments forms concerning 13 multilateral organisations have been completed by the Representations during 2004, providing substantial information especially on the World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF and the EC.
Among these four organisations, only the overall performance of UNICEF is rated “less satisfactory”, while the performance of the other organisations is seen as “satisfactory”. The performance of the World Bank is awarded the highest rating.
Assessing the performance of 16 multilateral organisations, multilateral
Representations and MFA departments rate the fulfilment of development objectives and overall organisational effectiveness as either “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory”. Goals and target-setting comes out as the least well-regarded area, as the rating “less satisfactory” has been applied in one third of cases.
The results-measurement system for development cooperation remains incipient (i sin vorden), but the complementary instruments developed as part of the Performance Management Framework have passed their test of usefulness and provided Representations, Danida management, and the public with documentation that has never been available before.
Although a number of methodological issues still need to be addressed to provide reliable documentation of aggregate performance at the corporate level, the groundwork has been laid, paving the way for valuable information being produced in the future.
Assessments conducted.
38 used the ratings “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory” to describe progress on gender equality. The same two ratings were used in 34 assessments of progress towards considering the environment, and in 38 assessments of progress with regard to human rights and democracy.
Sector assessments qualify the ratings by mentioning the sometimes adverse impact of external factors, beyond the control of the programmes. In a number of cases, the assessments indicate that targets may need to be reviewed and strategies modified to adjust to changes in government policy, strategy or budget situation.
Such alerts to potential future issues enable better management both of the specific programme in question and of expectations and performance at the corporate level.
Regarding the multilateral development cooperation, organisation strategies and the associated annual action plans are the key tools for dialogue with the multilateral organisations supported. To date, 16 organisation strategies have been approved, and overall progress towards the targets defined has been rated “satisfactory” for most Assessment of Annual Performance Report 2003.
The Annual Performance Report 2003 has fully met its objectives, set out in the Performance Management Framework, which are to improve the quality, management and continuous learning, accountability and efficiency of Danish development cooperation by focussing more on results.
This has taken place through high-quality assessments of the fulfilment of objectives at the country and sector levels, and of achievements in the pursuit of cross-cutting priorities. Most importantly, the report identifies channels through which Danida has contributed towards realising these priorities,
deriving useful lessons learned. The country stories in the review serve to enrich the discussion.
The review also assesses, in one short report, the PRS process in the countries, as well as the progress towards budget support, donor harmonisation, and a performance management system for multilateral development assistance.
Finally, the review presents actionable recommendations to Representations. In contrast to many review reports of this nature, this one is highly readable, because it is brief and refrains from using evaluation jargon (Poonam Gupta, Results Secretariat, the World Bank).
The commitment of donors and partner countries to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and subsequent international agreements at Monterrey (Conference on Finance, 2002), Rome (Conference on Harmonisation, 2003) and Marrakech (Conference on Managing for Results, 2004), has increased the focus on setting goals and objectives for Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).
The Monterrey Consensus established shared responsibility among donors and partner countries to improve development results, while the Joint Marrakech Memorandum outlined five principles for a harmonised
approach on managing for results.
Against this background, since 2003, Danida has been establishing a comprehensive Performance Management Framework (PMF) for Danish development cooperation. The objectives pursued by the PMF are to:
1) Enhance the quality of Danish development cooperation through stronger focus on results.
2) Improve management and continuous learning, through better information and reporting.
3) Strengthen accountability through performance assessments and measurement in the context of an increasingly decentralised management structure.
To accomplish this, a number of tools have been developed for the bilateral and multilateral development cooperation, respectively. These tools are designed to provide performance management information at three levels:
1) corporate (Danida) level,
2) country level, and
3) programme and project level.
In early 2004, the first Annual Performance Report was produced by the Quality Assurance Department, KVA, to document results, progress and constraints in the management and provision of Danish development cooperation.
This years Annual Performance Report provides documentation and analysis on the information and results generated by the various tools designed to measure the performance of Danish development cooperation.
The report does not intend to provide an exhaustive picture of the performance of Danish development cooperation, but rather to set out the progress, constraints and challenges, which will have to be addressed in the future to keep raising the quality and effectiveness of development cooperation.
Rapporten Annual Performance Report 2004 kan hentes på www.amg.um.dk
Yderligere oplysninger Birgitte Marcussen i Danida, telefon 33 92 13 08.
