Investigating RBM Approach Applicability in a Developing Country like India
kumar Ratan
Dear Sanjha Samvad Members,
Result Based Management has brought shift in management system from input, activities and output to Outcome achievement. This concept has been a revolutionary one. RBM is considered to be a revolution in management sciences not an evolution as its roots are closely linked to the efforts done to implement the Management-By-Objectives (MBO) approach. RBM is used to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and to ensure accountability obligations through performance reporting.
Donor agencies started to establish results based management (RBM) systems, because of pressures exerted over them from the public who require accountability in the expenditure of donated funds. The public generally believe that programs in countries receiving this financial aid, are prone to fail. This led donor agencies to restructure their management systems to become more effective and results-oriented. This was a good change.
But after two decades (approx) of adaptation of RBM concept in India, we need to discuss/investigate RBM application in developing country like India, with an objective to make some theoretical contribution to the development sector….
What you guys think about the issue? Please do reflect and enrich this discussion……
Kumar Ratan
Institute of Social Development Trust
not know RBM but it is the responsibility of change agent to implent
it at grassroot level.
Dr. V.S.Singh, Chitrakoot
On 7/7/12, kumar Ratan <kumarra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Sanjha Samvad Members,
>
>
>
> Result Based Management has brought shift in management system from input,
> activities and output to Outcome achievement. This concept has been a
> revolutionary one. RBM is considered to be a revolution in management
> sciences not an evolution as its roots are closely linked to the efforts
> done to implement the Management-By-Objectives (MBO) approach. RBM is used
> to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and to ensure accountability
> obligations through performance reporting.
>
>
>
> Donor agencies started to establish results based management (RBM) systems,
> because of pressures exerted over them from the public who require
> accountability in the expenditure of donated funds. The public generally
> believe that programs in countries receiving this financial aid, are prone
> to fail. This led donor agencies to restructure their management systems to
> become more effective and results-oriented. This was a good change.
>
> But after two decades (approx) of adaptation of RBM concept in India, we
> need to discuss/investigate RBM application in developing country like
> India, with an objective to make some theoretical contribution to the
> development sector….
>
>
> What you guys think about the issue? Please do reflect and enrich this
> discussion……
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> JCSS, 64, Cantt., Bishop's House, Jhansi- 284001, Uttar Pradesh, India.
> email:kumarra...@gmail.com
> web page: www.haritprayas.blogspot.com
> Mob: +91 9935395253
>
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kumar Ratan
Kumar Ratan
SANJHA SAMVAD
Dear members,
This is one of the critical and utmost need based issue of the today’s development sector, we request members to be actively respond and discuss on it. Take some time reflect on it and come out with the real experience and share that.
Let’s come to discuss change!
SANJHA SAMVAD
shipra gupta
The Problem with RBM
We have all seen solid projects that are doing good work but have serious problems communicating their results to the people supporting them or the organizations funding them. Even good projects can have problems with results-based monitoring and evaluation. This is not a project problem. It is a problem with RBM. When capable people do not use an idea that could serve them well, the problem is usually not with the people, but with the way the idea is being communicated.RBM frameworks and results-based monitoring and evaluation systems, such as managing for development results, are too often developed in isolation from the realities of what happens on the ground. The terms for results, as they arepresented in these RBM frameworks by a host of different donor agencies and government departments, are too often simply bureaucratic jargon. Academic in appearance, or vague in meaning, the RBM terms are hard to interpret and implement in the real world where line agencies and their partners work.
Project implementing agencies, that just want to get on with the job, get snowed under with a wide range of different RBM terminology, used in different ways, by different agencies, as they struggle to demonstrate development effectiveness.
Some examples:
· Resources
· Inputs
· Activities
· Outputs
· Outcomes (immediate, intermediate and ultimate),
· Impact
· Purpose
· Objectives
· Risk
· Risk Management
· Assumptions
· Indicators (for activities, results and risk)
· Targets
· Measures
· Baseline data
· Results chains
· Logic Model
· Logical Framework
· Results Framework
· Performance Measurement Framework
· Performance Monitoring Framework
· Monitoring and evaluation system
· Outcome evaluations
· Development effectiveness reviews
· Impact assessment
Monitors, analysts and evaluators trying to use Results-Based Management do not find this terminology any easier than do the project managers or implementors.
Despite some efforts to come up with common RBM definitions, the most commonly used terms in RBM -- "Outputs", "Outcomes", and "Impacts" -- in practice mean different things for different agencies, in different cultures, and most certainly, in different languages.
The term "Results” is often used synonymously with "goals" and "objectives" and therefore expressed in an ambitious, vague, or long-term manner.
Project planners and implementers, busy with the practical issues of delivering complex services, simply do not have time -- or often the inclination -- to work their way through unclear, confusing and, in the case of an organization with multiple funding agencies, often conflicting RBM terminology. Although several donor agencies are now trying to improve their RBM frameworks, the procedures and terms are becoming longer and more complex, rather than shorter, simpler and more practical.
Donors are confused about RBM terms too
Implementing agencies such as NGOs or national government agencies are not alone in being puzzled or intimidated by the terms used in results-based management or management for development results. It is common to see staff of donor agencies who are confused by what the jargon means.
One donor agency training session on RBM, in 2010, for example, included a PowerPoint presentation with 153 slides, and almost a thousand lines of dense text. From what we know of how adults learn , this is not an effective means of encouraging understanding or motivating people to use a new idea.
Given the problems, it is no wonder people on the implementation end of international development programming ask whether results-based management is worth the trouble it often causes them. In effect, people who actually are interested in explaining their results, get trapped by the jargon.
But it is reasonably easy to deconstruct RBM, to break down the logjam of dense terminology into its components, to make the tasks of planning, managing and reporting by results simple -- and even enjoyable -- to the for the people doing it.
shipra gupta
Results-based management should, in theory, be a useful tool for all international development practitioners: policy makers, managers and most important, service providers, field workers and the people they work with. It should help them as they plan and implement the activities they need to get the results they want. But for this to work, we need a simpler RBM framework and Results-Based Management terminology based in reality.
People working on education, health, environment, rural development and governance projects know what they are doing, and what they want to happen. What they really want to be able to do, is to explain their results clearly to other people: to their colleagues, to political leaders, to government officials, to donors, to professionals in other fields and to the people they are trying to help, in villages or cities around the world.
Results-Based Management is not the only planning, monitoring or evaluation tool available but, if it works, results-based management should make development practitioners' lives easier, not more difficult. The fact is, however, that many people find RBM a bureaucratic nightmare.
6 Practical Reasons to Use RBM
Where competition for limited resources is high, both national governments and donor agencies want to get maximum value for money spent on development projects. And for that matter, everybody working on development, in NGOs, government or the private sector wants to achieve results, and wants to be able to explain them.Most bilateral donors, and virtually all multilateral agencies, including most notably UNICEF, UNDP, UNIFEM, FAO and the World Bank group are now focusing on results. Or, to be more precise, they say they are focusing on results, even though some of them have serious problems using RBM in practice.
Some agencies still call the process results-based management, some "managing for development results", and approaches such as outcome mapping and can be incorporated in the process, or used as alternatives. But whatever they call it, most national governments in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean are expressing interest in using some form of results-based management and evaluation themselves. These governments are establishing results-based monitoring and evaluation systems because they want to get control of the programmes they are running, and because, in many cases, they are responding to pressure from international agencies.
Governments, donors and programming partners can learn useful lessons by focusing on results, not activities. There are at least six major benefits of focusing on results:
1. Better implementation
· Thinking in terms of problems and opportunities, explicit and shared understanding of “expected results” can strengthen needs assessment, rapid appraisals, planning and monitoring and reveal early in the process misunderstandings or disagreements about goals among stakeholders, which can undermine effective implementation if they are ignored. Getting results clear at the start is the best choice, but clarifying them later can still help remove implementation roadblocks.
2. Better communication
· Clarifying what we mean by results lets us deal with differences of understanding before a project begins, and helps implementing agencies communicate results to funders -- national governments, donor agencies, communities and taxpayers -- in a clear, unambiguous manner.
3. Stronger capacity development
· Identifying intended results in a clear, workable and realistic way, helps us build capacity, because it clarifies for us what we need to concentrate on, what resources we need to bring to the job, and what our real assumptions are about cause and effect.
· Understanding results as part of an incremental “results chain” can help identify where interventions to build capacity are necessary, and likely to work.
4. More realistic project schedules
· Clear results-based planning produces more realistic schedules, forcing us to think through the preconditions and sequence for actions, and the resources they require.
5. Useful evaluation results
· Clarifying results during planning and internal monitoring prepares projects for effective evaluations. Any organization that knows where its results are, and how to document them, is in a much stronger position to make its case effectively when external evaluations occur. More important, such an organization is also well positioned to learn lessons from its own internal monitoring.
· Implementers can themselves monitor progressive change as they work, looking at whether and how they are incrementally making a difference to the situation - in other words, realizing results. They can then either continue with greater assurance or take corrective action as needed.
· Implementers can also identify unplanned results, as they occur, and assess if these are desirable, or problematic, requiring support or coping strategies.
6. Reducing opportunities and pressures for corruption
· Focusing clearly on results, and making the links between inputs, funded activities and the results they should be leading to, reduces the potential for corruption -- or simply indifferent thinking and wasted resources in decision-making and project implementation. When we are planning for results we don't fund just any activity that comes along. Nor do we continue to fund activities just because they have been done before. We fund what clearly contributes to the results we have identified as priorities.
