Carolin Schramm

100 participants from 30 countries discussing results measurement

18. Jan 2012

As part of the BIF team I am currently participating in an international seminar on current trends and results in private sector development (PSD), organised by the DECD in Bangkok.

Not only the mix of participants (programme managers, M&E specialists, field based and HQ based donors) representing 30 different countries and more than 200 different projects is exciting in itself, but even more so all the various discussions on how measuring results differs from programme to programme but yet seems to have so much in common.

Today, I was facilitating a breakout session on the Business Innovation Facility and our approach to measuring results in BIF. Whilst the concept of inclusive business is well known to many practitioners, the term itself is less widely used outside the core 'IB community'.

BIF also differs from many other PSD programmes represented (M4P approaches such as Katalyst or trade facilitation programmes such as Trade Mark East Africa) in that we directly work with companies. Challenge fund approaches such as the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) do that, too but BIF yet again differs since we don't offer finance (grants or loans) but advisory support.  

So, is BIF results measurement all different to what others do? Not really...some first thoughts on common issues many programmes seem to face:

  • Terminology differs but matters. Even amongst the M&E community common terms such as impact, evaluation, or assessment are used widely different. In BIF the importance of using business language with business, e.g. Results and Key Performance Indicators instead of M&E and impacts is one of the lessons of BIF M&E so far. A lesson shared by others who also work directly with companies such as the AECF.
  • The importance to integrate results measurement into management systems and not have M&E Managers that operate in silos. AECF, for example only have 1 full time M&E Manager but approx. 30 project managers who oversee and implement the whole M&E process for their specific projects.
  • The need to balance donor expectations and their appetite for (often) quick results with realistic estimates and honest results. Participants agree that clear expectation management and the use of early M&E to clarify what kind of results and data can be expected over time is key here.
  • Issues of attribution, the difficulty of quantifying (and measuring) systemic changes, time lag until results can be measured vs. limited programme implementation phases are also challenges shared between many of us.

More to follow soon...Follow the latest seminar updates on Twitter http://twitter.com/TheDCED and watch our HUB for more updates. All seminar materials will be made available soon after completion of the event.