Managing for Development Results at ADB

Results Matter January 2009

MfDR Consultation Work with Development Partners
By C.C. Yu and Patrick Safran, Results Management Unit

During 17–27 November 2008, we visited five bilateral and multilateral agencies to exchange knowledge and share experiences in managing for development results (MfDR) at the institutional and country operations levels. We also explored potential areas of collaboration in results-based management and synergy within and between our respective institutions. The agencies we visited included the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and United States Department of State in Washington, DC; the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in New York; and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Ottawa. The following are some of our major findings.

World Bank
The World Bank has been focusing its efforts on conducting the Multilateral Development Banks’ Common Performance Assessment (COMPAS) report; the MfDR Capacity Scan, a set of analytical tools designed to assess the capacities of individual institutions in MfDR; and the Results Platform, which is mainly an information technology system that facilitates results monitoring and reporting. A key feature of this system is its ability to show vertical links, demonstrating how different projects in a country contribute to a specific country outcome. However, a major challenge is the lack of numeric data at the project level on project outputs and outcomes, which prevent their quantitative aggregation.

The World Bank also introduced a specific MfDR module into its Operations Roadmap Learning Program as part of its basic operations training, followed by intermediate workshops on implementing projects for results and the implementation and status results report.

Inter-American Development Bank
Currently, it seems that IDB has not yet developed its results-based country assistance strategies. IDB staff members expressed a strong interest in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) results-based country partnership strategy methodology and learning process. It appears that ADB could adapt and/or customize (i) IDB’s process of integration of development effectiveness into its private sector operations, and (ii) IDB’s methodology for developing and using a balanced scorecard for assessing its performance results. IDB developed its balanced scorecard with the participation of its operations departments and resident missions to engage all potential users in identifying and developing relevant indicators. Its development was strongly supported by the vice president in charge of private sector operations. Furthermore, IDB has made significant progress in using results-based approaches in its loan design by building in performance indicators.

United Nations Development Programme
UNDP has approved its corporate-level results framework and seems to face challenges similar to ADB in filtering corporate indicators down to individual country operations. UNDP has developed an information technology system capable of vertically linking project-level outputs and their contributions to major outcomes for each country program.

The system was developed using Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing enterprises resources planning. Like the World Bank’s system, UNDP’s system is also capable of demonstrating how many of UNDP’s projects are contributing to a particular outcome in a country. Although such a link is expressed in qualitative terms, the system seems useful in terms of bringing the responsibilities of corporate results achievement down to individual project officers. Although there are significant differences between ADB and UNDP in their respective lines of business and the need for results accounting,

ADB’s current Project Processing and Portfolio Management efforts may benefit from a better understanding of the UNDP and World Bank systems.

Canadian International Development Agency
CIDA, generally acknowledged as a results-based management frontrunner, has pioneered many innovative uses of results-based management approaches in its aid programs. As an example, ADB could learn from CIDA’s results and risks concepts and techniques in designing and implementing results frameworks at the country and project levels.

This exercise has affirmed that ADB’s current approach and activities are on the right track. The mutual learning process will surely serve to strengthen and to improve the MfDR momentum within and between respective organizations for the sake of member countries and their beneficiaries. In addition, ADB’s experience in learning and managing for results and the approach taken to filter corporate-level results indicators down to the country level proved to be valuable for the other institutions.