Managing for Development Results at ADB

Results Matter December 2007

Developing Capacity in Public Sector Organizations
to Implement MfDR
By Ziba Farhadian-Lorie, Principal Economist (South Asia Regional Department)

The author (second from left) at the Forum on Mainstreaming MfDR in Support of Poverty Reduction in South Asia

A 2-day Forum in Bangkok on 13–14 November 2007 brought together senior officials from oversight agencies and pilot organizations under ADB Regional Technical Assistance (RETA) 6306, Mainstreaming Managing for Development Results (MfDR) in Support of Poverty Reduction in South Asia,[1] from Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Representatives from various donor agencies also joined to observe evidence of capacity and ownership in managers of pilot organizations to own and lead the change management requirements of MfDR. [2]

Increased Country Capacity
The Forum demonstrated achievements made under the RETA to build capacity in officials of developing member countries (DMCs) on MfDR. These officials representing the pilot agencies covered by this project ably discussed their assessment of their technical and managerial capacities to manage for development results their strengths and shortcomings, and options to further address the identified capacity gaps. There were numerous examples of the way processes, procedures, and management practices were changed as these officials learned to mainstream MfDR (not as a collection of technical requirements but as a change management competency) in their individual organizations.

Under the Paris Declaration, both partner countries and development partners committed to work together to strengthen country capacities and demand for results-based management. They also agreed to jointly assess, through existing and increasingly objective country-level mechanisms, mutual progress in implementing agreed commitments.

Capacity Assessment Tool
RETA 6306 has taken a pragmatic approach in developing a tool for capacity assessment of DMCs, followed by action plans to address capacity gaps that are revealed by the tool. Importantly, this work is focused on capacity assessment at the organization level, not the whole public sector. This has been an emphasis of the Ha Noi roundtable and a recommended approach for work on MfDR in the future.

One of the few points on which the majority of practitioners in the field of managing for results seem to agree is that any efforts to build/develop serious capacity in the public sector to fully manage for results will have to start with a deep assessment of the existing capacity. Such an assessment of existing capacity must go beyond the assessment of existing (and necessary) technical devices and processes to assess the managerial capacity to understand and manage the needed change processes involved. To date, few developing countries have moved from stage one to stage two. Many are still planning the implementation of stage one, with stage two lying ahead as an unclear gap in the implementation process.

The philosophy of the RETA can be summarized as follows: introduction of MfDR into the government of a country is a long-term process that requires change at both the institutional and organizational levels. Stage one of this process of managed change is the introduction of a results-focus into the country planning and budgeting processes, along with various technical devices and processes that can demonstrate that the focus remains on results (e.g., introduction of log frames and indicators at the project and sectoral levels; monitoring and reporting processes).

Cascading to Individual Organizations
Stage two cascades the philosophy and practices down to the individual organizations within the government and holding these units responsible for delivering the planned results identified in stage one. Without a planned and managed cascading process, the results frameworks created at the highest level are often expected to run on auto-pilot and are unlikely to ensure the optimal delivery of results.

What the cascading process does is to move the process of implementation from the realm of the development economist and the governance of the state to that of the management and leadership of individual public sector organizations. At this stage, the management and employees of every state organization becomes involved in organizational and behavioral change, which is likely to run counter to many elements of the existing culture of the civil service.

Change Management
MfDR in the public sector is more than a new system of measurement. It is a long-term process involving a reorientation of thinking and planning, and change at the institutional and management levels.

The management parlance of the DMC officials who worked under this RETA clearly showed their appreciation of the importance of MfDR’s technical aspects (the introduction of a results frameworks and indicators into country planning, policy making, strategy development; monitoring and evaluation systems; stakeholder consultation; and input-oriented measures of performance). However, their presentations strongly argued that these technical components must be accompanied by managerial capabilities such as understanding the enabling environment, cultural values (and barriers), forces and pockets of resistance to change, and incentive systems affecting performance, among other things, to bring about a material improvement in development results.

Many pilot agencies talked of the dangers of an organization developing a sense of complacency when the technical aspects of MfDR are in place. Project implementation may improve and portfolios become less risky. Yet, the organization’s true clients may not be well served as operations could be misguided without a clear organizational results chain.
Lessons learned from the RETA have been widely disseminated within the global development community and shared within ADB.

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