Effective Results Frameworks for Sustainable Development

4. Designing programme- and project-level results frameworks

Guiding Principles

Development organisations set for themselves clear expected results […] and design and apply flexibly sound methodologies at corporate, portfolio, country, sector, programme and project levels to achieve these results.

At country level, development organisations align their indicator framework to [countries’ own] results frameworks, prioritising national indicators that are aligned to the SDGs. They synchronise planning cycles with […] countries’ own cycles and harmonise their respective results frameworks to minimise costs and avoid duplications.

Development organisations focus on achieving long-term outcomes rather than only on short-term deliverables. Depending on the circumstances, managers can adapt the deliverables and arrange resources as required to achieve the desired outcomes.

OECD (2019[1]) Managing for Sustainable Development Results, Guiding Principle 1, 2 and 3

Programme and project results frameworks are the main instruments for guiding implementation at country level. They need to rely on best practice in results framework design. They also need to ensure that all efforts within the organisation or government contribute to their strategic objectives, ensuring consistency across different organisational levels, sectors and initiatives.

Beyond this internal alignment, results frameworks can be used as anchors for more joined-up approaches across development stakeholders at country level. In aligning to countries’ overarching results frameworks, harmonisation and co-ordination of development efforts can be fostered, efficient synergies built, consistent approaches maintained and costly overlaps between development interventions avoided.

Flexible, agile organisations can more easily adapt to different contexts, partnerships and evolving situations. This requires allowing for the possibility to tailor results frameworks to each context. It also requires that the underlying logic and results framework(s) can be adapted during implementation to manage evolving situations, while keeping the focus on outcomes rather than activities or outputs.

Figure 4.1 illustrates the balance needed in crafting effective results frameworks for programmes and projects. They must be well-designed and relevant to the development challenge in question, aligned with higher-level frameworks and partners’ frameworks (vertical and horizontal coherence), and adaptable, with a focus on outcomes and impact. Striving for the progressive harmonisation of results frameworks used by governments and international partners is crucial to reconciling these often-competing requirements in the medium term.

This chapter provides advice and options to assess and integrate the various needs in a practical manner.

Figure 4.1. Interlinkages between results frameworks at various levels

Potential flows of results information from the intervention to the strategic level

Note: RF = Results framework. For simplicity, the above figure does not include cross-sector information needs. However, addressing sustainable development issues comprehensively will usually require the involvement of various sectors and ministries (with various data needs).

Issues covered in this chapter

• Programme- and project-level results frameworks are well-designed

• Effective programme- and project-level results frameworks are linked to strategic objectives

• Effective programme- and project-level results frameworks foster ownership, harmonisation and co-ordination at country level

• Effective programme- and project-level results frameworks are flexible and fit to specific contexts and evolving situations

4.1. Programme- and project-level results frameworks are well designed

4.1.1. Why is this important?

Well-designed results frameworks are essential beyond specific projects or programmes. They help align efforts with strategic goals, facilitate institutional learning, enhance communication of impact, and inform decision-making, thereby fostering overall coherence, effectiveness and credibility of the government or development organisation. Studies estimate that the return on investing in good monitoring and evaluation approaches falls between US$ 4 and US$ 54 per dollar invested (Bamberger, Mackay and Ool, 2004[2]).

High quality results frameworks across the portfolio of programmes and projects enable comprehensive reporting on overall results, facilitating better alignment, integration and synergies among diverse development efforts, thereby enhancing collective impact.

This is particularly important for international development partners, as they design results frameworks for over 80 percent of their development projects and for over 67 percent of their country programmes (OECD, 2021[3]).

4.1.2. Self-assessment questions

• To what extent do you develop results frameworks at sector, programme and/or project levels?

• What strengths and weaknesses do those frameworks present?

4.1.3. Actions to consider and pitfalls to avoid

• Ensure that the guidance, processes and templates for developing results frameworks for programmes and projects follow standard good practice (see an indicative checklist below).

  • Avoid: Excessive rigidity or burden in terms of requirements. Some interventions (e.g. small projects, locally led interventions) and contexts (e.g. volatile, unpredictable situations) may require more flexible approaches (e.g. narratives, ex-post outcome harvesting).

• Adapt the guidance and formats to the specific stakeholders who will lead the development of the intervention and associated results frameworks.

• Facilitate guidance for indicator selection (see Chapter 2).

  • Avoid: Approaches that only consider internal indicator needs. Interventions need to be context-sensitive and a review of key sector indicators in the country is important.

• Ensure that the process of approving programmes and projects includes a quality assurance mechanism or helpdesk function that can advise on results frameworks, as a backstop.

4.1.4. Checklist to consider when designing programme and project results frameworks

1. Situation Analysis and Needs Assessment

a) Was a situation analysis conducted to understand the issue(s) and need(s) to be addressed?

b) Is there a sound understanding of the local dynamics, including the roles of key players and other existing or planned interventions in the same area/sector?

c) Is the value added of the programme/project clear and understood by partners and stakeholders?

2. Clear and Measurable Objective(s)

a) Is the objective of the programme or project clear, concise and specific?

b) Does the objective respond to the issues and needs identified in the situation analysis?

c) Is the objective measurable?

d) Is the objective aligned with the organisation's overall goals?

3. Stakeholder Engagement (of implementing partners and individuals/groups impacted by the project)

a) Are the different groups of stakeholders identified and their roles and responsibilities defined?

b) Does the programme/project document describe the stakeholder engagement actions to design the intervention and identify the expected outcomes and indicators?

c) Is there a plan for engaging with stakeholders throughout the programme/project lifecycle (i.e. in planning, monitoring, evaluation and decision-making)?

d) Is the plan regularly updated to reflect changes in stakeholder needs or priorities?

4. Underlying Logic

a) Does a logical framework (logframe), or an alternative method to formulate the intervention (e.g. theory of change), describe the activities, outputs and outcomes that will contribute to the targeted objective included in the document?

b) Is the logframe clear, concise, well-structured and with realistic timeframes?

c) Does the logframe show the causal relationships between the project's activities, outputs, outcomes and impact?

d) Are the risks that the project might face and the assumptions underlying the expected change identified and prioritised?

5. Performance Indicators

a) Are performance indicators specified in the programme or project document?

b) Are (most of) the indicators specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound?

c) Are (most of) the indicators aligned with the programme’s or project's objectives and the logframe?

d) Are there indicators referring to outputs and outcomes (vs only inputs or activities)?

e) Are the data sources for each indicator specified?

6. Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

a) Is a monitoring and evaluation plan included in the programme or project document?

b) Is the plan clear, concise and well-structured?

c) Does the plan include the baseline and target values for key indicators to be able to measure change?

d) Does the plan include the methods and tools for collecting data on the performance indicators?

e) Does the plan provide for the conditions for success and risk factors to be monitored?

f) Does the plan specify who will collect the data, how often it will be collected, and how it will be analysed?

g) Are templates in place to collect the data and report progress towards results in a standard way to facilitate aggregation at the programme and organisational levels?

7. Risk Management

a) Is a risk management plan included in the document?

b) Does the plan include mitigation strategies for high-priority risks?

c) Is the plan regularly updated to reflect new risks or changes in risk levels?

8. Budget and Resources

a) Is a budget included in the document?

b) Is the budget realistic and based on sound assumptions?

c) Are the resources needed to implement the programme or project adequately identified and allocated?

9. Sustainability

a) Is sustainability considered in the design of the programme or project?

b) Is there a plan for ensuring the programme or project’s sustainability beyond its completion?

c) Does the plan consider the programme or project’s environmental, social, and economic impacts?

Resources

• World Bank (2012), Designing a Results Framework for Achieving Results: A How-to Guide

• Asian Development Bank (2020), Guidelines for Preparing a Design and Monitoring Framework

• USAID (2022), Developing Results Frameworks

• Swedish International Development Agency (2020), Results-Based Management in Contribution Management [self-paced presentation]

• Council of Europe (2022), Results-based Management: A Practical Guide

4.2. Effective programme- and project-level results frameworks are linked to strategic objectives

4.2.1. Why is this important?

Each organisation has its own architecture to deliver on its strategy and reach its objectives, which can involve different levels of decision-making. As seen in Figure 4.1, governments implement their national development strategies and policy priorities through line ministries and specialised agencies, which often have their own (more detailed) sector policies, strategic plans and results frameworks. Many development partners also produce country strategies or partnership frameworks in their partner countries. In turn, many also develop sector or thematic strategies that cut across multiple countries. Individual projects either directly contribute to achieving these top-level objectives or, more frequently, do so indirectly under the umbrella of sector, thematic or country programmes.

This interconnected ecosystem of strategies and frameworks varies from context to context and with a great deal of reciprocal influence. However, to preserve a strategic direction and avoid the fragmentation of efforts, it is important that programme- and project-level results frameworks remain coherent and geared towards achieving the overarching objectives set at the top level. This requires linking overarching priorities with portfolio results and aligning project-level results with strategic priorities.

Sector, thematic or country programmes can serve to facilitate the connection between discrete interventions and overall objectives. These intermediate results frameworks can include objectives and indicators that reflect specific overarching goals and describe how a series of interventions, with specific outputs and outcomes, will contribute to reaching those ultimate objectives.

4.2.2. Self-assessment questions

• To what extent and in which ways do programmes and projects align with the overall goals and (national or corporate) results framework(s)?

• How well do sector, thematic or country programmes connect discrete interventions and overall objectives? Are there any areas of improvement to be made in aligning project-level results with strategic priorities?

• Consider the mechanisms in place for aggregating information from multiple projects across your government or agency. Are standard or mandatory results indicators being used for aggregation and reporting? How effective and efficient are your current guidelines and information-management systems in facilitating this process? How could the monitoring and measurement of strategic results be improved?

4.2.3. Actions to consider and pitfalls to avoid

• Clarify the set of priorities and (limited number of) higher-level results frameworks and indicators that will serve as reference points for measuring strategic priorities.

  • Avoid: The proliferation of very specific priorities over time due to changing leadership. Focus on formulating priorities that align with the overall mandate and longer-term development goals.

• Establish protocols, formats and incentives to align programmes and projects with the overarching priorities and results frameworks of the government or development organisation.

• Integrate consensus development agendas, such as the SDGs, to facilitate harmonisation with partners around planning, monitoring, financing and data.

• Review the quality and coherence of your results frameworks (use the assessment in Box 4.1).

Box 4.1. Exercise: Assessing the quality and coherence of your portfolio of results frameworks

Governments and development partners manage broad sets of programmes and projects across policy areas and geographies. The average quality of results frameworks may vary significantly across these portfolios. It is therefore advisable for strategic planning managers and portfolio managers to regularly carry out light assessments (every one to three years, depending on organisational needs), to understand the evolving strengths and challenges of current practices in designing results frameworks.

Portfolio managers at various levels can perform a combination of desk reviews and limited portfolio analyses to assess the current situation and identify the most pressing challenges and missing elements. The goal is to identify existing gaps and propose incremental and feasible steps in the short- and medium-term to strengthen the effectiveness of results frameworks:

1. Identify the scope and hierarchy of your government’s or organisation’s stock of results frameworks

(a) Map out your stock of results frameworks

Collect and review the following documents:

• Strategic level:

  • Overarching development policies and strategies – even if these documents do not include proper results frameworks, they typically set out the objectives to achieve.

  • Overall performance documents used to report on the results of your portfolio or budget (e.g. annual reports, reports to parliament, Ministry of Finance, etc.), even if they may not include results information at the moment. This step helps visualise the existing internal and external mechanisms for accountability and communications.

• Intermediate level:

  • Country strategies or partnership frameworks [for development partners]: Collect existing country strategies or partnership framework documents for programme countries (where these have been developed).

  • Sector strategies and thematic frameworks [for governments and development partners]: Collect sector or thematic strategies and frameworks (where these have been developed).

• Individual intervention level:

  • Collect a variety of project documents that your government or development organisation has developed relevant to the portfolio under review (for example: project documents describing objectives, activities, etc.; grant applications from external implementers; partnership documents in co-funded activities; etc.). If your portfolio of projects is large in number, you will need to select a representative sample. Make sure to randomly select between 35 and 40 project documents (so they include a variety of examples covering, for example, different sectors with different qualities in intervention design and results frameworks).

    Organisational chart: A very detailed chart is desirable to better understand the hierarchy, accountability lines, division of labour and available support within the organisation/ministry and other stakeholders. The organisational chart is a powerful visual tool for understanding the internal accountability and needs for results data within the organisation or ministry.

(b) Identify the flows of results information

Based on the documentation, review the needs for results data at the three levels specified above, and classify them based on how each organisational area will use them (i.e. accountability, communication, learning, decision-making). This rapid assessment will help you visualise your data needs and gaps.

2. Assess the strengths and weaknesses in the current stock of results frameworks

A functional system requires quality results frameworks that respond to institutional priorities. Perform a light review of the cascade of priorities within your organisation or government and compare these against the (sample of) project documents, following the checklist described above. You can use this assessment guide to perform this portfolio review or rely on your own internal criteria.

To carry out the assessment, use the above checklist to consider when designing programme and project results frameworks, applying to each item the classification to summarise where your portfolio (as a whole) stands against benchmark practices. This will give you a clear view of strengths and identify areas where more detailed guidance, capacity development or process re-engineering may help in improving the results-orientation of your portfolio.

3. Measure the level of alignment and coherence of results frameworks used at various levels

Finally, use the outputs produced in steps 1 and 2 to gauge the overall alignment of your portfolio of results frameworks to your strategic priorities. This can help in identifying gaps and addressing areas that require support, such as the development of standard indicators to facilitate anchoring to priorities.

Note: The above guidance is indicative. Governments and organisations should consider adjustments or extensions to this exercise on the basis of their specific protocols and knowledge needs. For continuous improvement, it is advisable to use this exercise initially to set a baseline and to repeat the review with some regularity (every one to three years).

4.2.4. Good practice

• Through a cascading architecture approach, the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) is working to strengthen the linkages between results “levels” – both cascading results downward and cascading results upward – where before there was a gap. To do this, AsDB is focusing on department-wide work plans, down to individual staff level, ensuring that staff and department incentives are linked with corporate targets and goals. AsDB’s information system is also being transformed to make it easier to store lessons, tacit knowledge and key information learned by project teams that can be shared before end-of-project reports. AsDB has also reviewed country-level results frameworks and how to strengthen the connections between these and corporate results.

• UNESCO’s approach to aggregating results from project to corporate programme and budget level is rooted in its operational principle: projects must anchor their project-specific results frameworks to corporate outcomes and internationally agreed development goals. Mechanisms for encouraging the use of results data for accountability, steering and learning include statutory reports (currently grouped in two categories that respectively focus on activities/outputs and on outcomes/impact), evaluations and UNESCO’s governance structures (field and headquarters). UNESCO’s six-month statutory reporting cycle enables overall governance to review and steer programmes, based on both progress towards results and budget execution.

Resources

• Canada (2022), Results-based management for international assistance programming at Global Affairs Canada: a How-to Guide

• Capacity4Dev (2023), Results and Indicators for Development

• World Bank (2023), Measuring and reporting results; Corporate Scorecard; the IDA Results Measurement System

• Compare various real-life approaches for project results frameworks, Denmark; Finland; Norway; Asian Development Bank; Inter-American Development Bank

4.3. Effective programme- and project-level results frameworks foster ownership, harmonisation and co-ordination at country level

4.3.1. Why is this important?

Aligning to country results frameworks is a prerequisite for fostering ownership. Each country has primary responsibility for its economic and social development, and the 165 governments endorsing the 2011 Busan Partnership Agreement have committed to relying on country-led results frameworks to guide their support to partner countries. Similarly, SDG target 17.15 calls on all development partners to respect each country’s policy space and leadership to establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development, with progress measured by the extent of use of country-owned results frameworks and planning tools by international development partners (SDG indicator 17.15.1).

Action dialogues at country level are needed to build trust and foster co-ordinated engagement. While reaffirming the country ownership principle, the 2022 Geneva Summit Declaration stressed that “open, inclusive and participatory action dialogues at the country level are essential to build a common understanding and stronger partnerships, enabling each to make their best contribution to the national and other commonly agreed development goals”.

Aligning to national results frameworks requires reconciling different agendas. Results frameworks serve different purposes and their use varies according to the stakeholders involved. Governments use data and results information to design and steer national strategies, co-ordinate the development interventions of all domestic and international actors and assess progress towards sustainable development. Development ministries and agencies at headquarters primarily use results information for domestic accountability and communication, while their country offices tend to use it to manage country programmes and projects (Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2. A balancing act: Different actors have distinctive needs for results data

For these actors, aligning to country-defined results while also contributing to their own organisation’s results frameworks to meet their own needs requires a balanced approach. In practice, their corporate results frameworks must be designed in a way that enables their steering and accountability functions while at the same time leaving room for context-based approaches that can align to their partner countries’ national objectives and results frameworks.

4.3.2. Self-assessment questions

• Reflect on the importance of aligning to countries’ results frameworks. How does your organisation currently apply the principle of respecting each country’s policy space and leadership in establishing policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development (SDG 17.15)? What improvements can be made to better align with the principles of country-led results frameworks?

• Given the importance of open, inclusive and participatory action dialogues at the country level for building common understanding and stronger partnerships, assess your organisation's current approach to such dialogues. What strategies or practices have been successful, and what areas could be improved or expanded upon? How does your organisation discuss and negotiate results to be pursued in country contexts where trust between partners is low?

• Consider the different data needs of various stakeholders, from governments to headquarters and country offices of development partners. How does your organisation balance these different needs, particularly when it comes to standardised results indicators and data for overall results reporting, versus context-relevant results data for policymaking, portfolio management and accountability? What strategies could be used to improve this balance, considering the specific context and needs of each stakeholder?

4.3.3. Actions to consider and pitfalls to avoid

Governments:

• Enable greater development partner alignment with the country’s results frameworks and data, by clarifying responsibilities in national planning and monitoring (where needed), and by promoting sector and subnational alignment (coherence) with national priorities and frameworks.

• Strive for harmonisation around a core set of development indicators, in liaison with centre-of-government institutions and national statistical offices, and develop public data platforms that are user-friendly and facilitate timely and reliable access to disaggregated data.

• Review and update development co-operation frameworks. Governments should review their country's development co-operation architecture, and key policies and frameworks guiding co-operation should be updated accordingly. This ensures that they remain relevant and useful amid the country's changing context, evolving needs and lessons learned.

  • Avoid: Developing new frameworks without sufficient consultation and buy-in from domestic stakeholders.

Development partners:

• Build flexibility into corporate results frameworks and other higher-level frameworks so that they leave country managers scope for alignment at country level. Among others:

  • Include a mix of standard and optional indicators in the corporate set of indicators:

    • limit the number of standard indicators that are mandatory or aggregated across the organisation to meet headquarters’ needs, and

    • give country offices the possibility to identify or select optional indicators based on the national context, the need to align to countries’ results frameworks, and country office needs for results information for learning and managing the country programme.

  • Review the current stock of prioritised national and sector results indicators and strive to use the same indicator formulation to measure outcomes and impacts. This step will contribute to data harmonisation at country level.

  • Make your results frameworks public, in particular ensuring availability to other development partners and country stakeholders. This will help promote harmonisation and convergence around similar results.

Both:

• Promote inclusive planning and consensus building. Both governments and development partners should ensure that planning processes are inclusive and that they work towards building consensus on development targets and indicators. This promotes mutual accountability, shared responsibility and more effective co-operation.

• Enhance the quality and results orientation of existing co-ordination mechanisms. Strengthen sectoral and multi-sectoral co-ordination and coherence at all levels.

  • Avoid restricting co-ordination mechanisms to mere information sharing. They should facilitate substantive dialogue around development needs, intended results and collective decision-making.

• Strengthen the link between results planning and financing. Governments and development partners should work to increase transparency in funding mechanisms (budget allocations and international development finance) and shift towards results-based financing that aligns with countries' development priorities and intended results.

4.3.4. Good practice

The example in the Box below illustrates a good practice for designing programme- and project-level results frameworks:

Box 4.2. Switzerland’s system for measuring impact

Switzerland has developed a comprehensive system for measuring the impact of its international co-operation. Its results framework includes a menu of standardised outcome and output indicators to choose from. They contribute both to the strategy’s objectives and to SDG targets, and they are standardised for all priority themes. Whenever feasible, SDG indicators are selected as standard. Switzerland maintains the flexibility to choose a maximum of 50% of context-specific indicators which are not selected from the list of standard indicators.

Source: OECD (2021[4]), Switzerland’s system for measuring results of development co-operation, https://www.oecd.org/development-cooperation-learning/practices/switzerland-s-system-for-measuring-results-of-development-co-operation-51fa9534/

Resources

• OECD (2023), Achieving SDG Results in Development Co-operation: A Comparative Study

• Dunning, C., Rose, S. and McGillem, C (2017), Implementing Ownership at USAID and MCC: A US Agency-Level Perspective, Centre for Global Development Policy Paper 7

4.4. Effective programme- and project-level results frameworks are flexible and fit to specific contexts and evolving situations

4.4.1. Why is this important?

Making good use of data and results information to manage programmes and projects requires delegating authority to field managers. There is a strong correlation between the degree of responsibility given to managers at the field level and the use of results information for decision-making and learning at country level (Guerrero-Ruiz, Schnatz and Verger, 2021[5]). Guiding Principle 2 for Managing for Sustainable Development Results – adapt to context – calls for development organisations to provide managers with the authority and flexibility to tailor management approaches depending on the type of engagement and local context, and to be flexible enough to adjust to rapidly evolving situations based on evidence monitoring and other sources of information. Depending on the circumstances, managers need to be able to adapt deliverables and arrange resources as required to achieve desired outcomes.

4.4.2. Self-assessment question

To what extent can managers: i) tailor their approaches to each specific context when designing a programme or a project, and ii) adjust the path of an ongoing programme or project in light of changing local contexts and results information to ensure that expected outcomes are met?

4.4.3. Actions to consider and pitfalls to avoid

• Provide guidance and encourage managers to:

  • conduct quality context analyses and keep track of local dynamics and needs;

  • identify and monitor the conditions for success (and/or assumptions) and risk factors in achieving the intended outcomes.

• Make it explicit to managers and partners that, in implementing programmes and projects, they should focus on achieving long-term outcomes rather than on only delivering short-term outputs.

• Provide managers with sufficient flexibility to tailor their approaches and processes to each specific context when designing programmes and projects.

• Empower programme and project managers to adjust the path of a project during its implementation in light of changing local contexts and results information to ensure the expected outcomes are met.

• Resist the impulse to impose tight controls and a focus on reaching pre-set measurable targets. This can prevent staff from using their own skills, knowledge and creativity to solve problems in ways that maximise the impact of the programme/project.

• Balance the risks of giving staff more autonomy with providing appropriate training and incentives. Support appropriate capacities to work adaptively, and to develop and use appropriate results and monitoring frameworks for this.

  • Avoid: Not addressing symptoms of an organisational culture that (formally or informally) discourages managers and staff from adapting plans and projects. Even when guidelines and processes may allow for review and course-correction, an excessive institutional focus on reporting on activities and on delivering as planned (for fiduciary and auditing purposes, for example) tends to create risk aversion and disincentives to altering original plans even when the intervention is not likely to deliver the expected outcomes without significant adjustments.

4.4.4. Good practice

The box below presents an example of a good practice for designing programme- and project-level results frameworks:

Box 4.3. Adaptive theories of change

Encouraging more ‘adaptive theories of change’ to support ongoing decision-making during implementation

As a flexible tool to think about and plan for results, theories of change (ToC) have become a popular innovation in development practice. They reflect the way the intervention is expected to achieve (or achieves) change. The ToC represents how people understand change to occur in a given context, including explicit (or implicit) assumptions about the causal links between inputs, activities and results – often also including evidence and risks for these elements of the results chain.

More recently, emphasis has been placed on the ongoing review and adjustment of theories of change as programmes and projects confront, learn from and adapt to reality. Some international development partners (such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States) have developed guidance for more adaptive theories of change, which measure both the attainment of a core set of benchmark results and more intermediate measures of progress. For instance, USAID’s ‘complexity-aware theories of change’ acknowledge uncertainty and assumptions at the start and establish a robust monitoring framework and plan to adapt. These organisations support and encourage specific partners to conduct regular reviews or ‘strategy testing’ sessions. These should be structured processes, with regular review points identified in advance, where evidence and data on progress are examined and any actions or changes needed are identified and then acted upon. Other methods seen as useful for supporting ongoing decision-making during implementation include outcome-mapping, developmental evaluation or forms of outcome-harvesting or process-tracing, among others.

Resources

• USAID’s Collaborate, Learn and Adapt (CLA) framework demonstrates how empowering staff to work adaptively requires work both on the enabling environment (including culture, internal processes and resourcing) and on individual staff capacities to collaborate, learn and adapt throughout a programme cycle. To try and embed CLA within the organisation, USAID has made it a required part of the programme cycle and developed a range of CLA-specific training and tools including:

  • Knowing When to Adapt – A Decision Tree to help staff resolve challenges in programming and think through when to adapt and on what basis those decisions will be made

  • Pivot Log Template – a tool to track significant changes made in an activity or project and the reasoning behind them

  • A CLA framework and maturity tool – which offers examples of what CLA looks like at different stages of maturity (from not-yet-present to fully institutionalised) and can be used by staff to assess current capacities and practices and plan which areas need improvement and where to best target training and support

• ODI (2019): Making adaptive rigour work: principles and practices for strengthening MEL for adaptive management

• Rogers, P., and Macfarlan, A. (2020): An Overview of Monitoring and Evaluation for Adaptive Management, DFAT Monitoring and Evaluation for Adaptive Management Working Paper Series Number 1 and What is adaptive management and how does it work? DFAT Monitoring and Evaluation for Adaptive Management Working Paper Series Number 2

4.5. Summary checklist for designing programme- and project-level results frameworks

• Are clear protocols, formats and incentives established to align programmes and projects with the overarching priorities and results frameworks of your organisation?

• Is there guidance and a quality assurance mechanism in place to help programme and project managers design results frameworks and select indicators?

• Does this guidance explicitly encourage programme and project managers and partners to focus on achieving long-term outcomes rather than on delivering short-term outputs only?

• Are the programme and project managers and their partners receiving appropriate training and incentives to work adaptively and to develop and use appropriate results and monitoring frameworks?

• Is there flexibility for programme and project managers to tailor their approaches and processes to each specific context when designing programmes and projects?

• At country level:

  • Is there a development co-operation framework enabling greater development partner alignment to national priorities and results frameworks?

  • Are the funding mechanisms transparent and is the budget linked to the development priorities and intended results?

  • Is the contextual analysis keeping track of local dynamics and needs?

  • Can programme and project managers choose context-specific indicators which are not selected from the list of standard indicators and can be used to harmonise around a core set of development indicators?

  • Are the existing national and sector results indicators used by default?

  • Are your results frameworks public?

References

[2] Bamberger, M., K. Mackay and E. Ool (2004), Influential Evaluations: Evaluations that Improve Performance and Impacts of Development Programmes, World Bank.

[5] Guerrero-Ruiz, A., J. Schnatz and C. Verger (2021), A baseline survey of the guiding principles on managing for sustainable development results, OECD, Paris, https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/a-baseline-survey-of-the-guiding-principles-on-managing-for-sustainable-development-results_f8974d89-en.

[3] OECD (2021), Achieving SDG Results in Development Co-operation: Summary for Policy Makers, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5b2b0ee8-en.

[4] OECD (2021), Switzerland’s system for measuring results of development co-operation, https://www.oecd.org/development-cooperation-learning/practices/switzerland-s-system-for-measuring-results-of-development-co-operation-51fa9534/ (accessed on 29 April 2024).

[1] OECD (2019), Managing for Sustainable Development Results: Guiding Principles, Best Practices in Development Co-operation, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/44a288bc-en.