Performance Assessment
Performance
assessment helps DFID and DFID’s partners to strengthen
the effectiveness of policies and programmes for reducing
poverty:
- By
improving our knowledge and identifying lessons on what
works and why.
- By
providing information on whether interventions are
appropriate, efficient and effective.
- By
improving accountability to people interested in or
affected by development intentions.
Information on performance is collected by monitoring, review and
evaluation:
-
Monitoring
is feedback gathered systematically during the process
of implementation to check performance
-
Periodic
reviews
analyse performance information to check whether
interventions are on track towards strategic objectives
or whether mid course corrections are needed.
-
Evaluation
provides a more fundamental assessment, as systematic as
possible, of an ongoing or completed project, programme
or policy, in terms of its design, implementation,
output and impact.
DFID's performance assessment systems
operate at several levels:
-
Corporate:
reviews of corporate performance including the annual
Departmental Report, the Public Service Agreement
and the Service Delivery Agreement; as well as
statistical reports, including Statistics for
International Development and reports to external
bodies such as the OECD's
Development Assistance Committee
and include benchmarking against other donor
agencies and Whitehall departments.
-
Country:
reviews of performance against objectives set out in
Country Strategy Papers (CSPs), including Annual Plan and
Performance Reports and end of cycle reviews.
-
Institutional:
reviews of performance against objectives set out in
Institutional Strategy Papers (ISPs), including
Institutional Performance Reviews.
-
Programme
and Project: performance
assessment at this level includes annual performance
scoring, Output to Purpose Reviews (OPRs), Project
Completion Reports (PCRs) and Evaluation Studies.
As well as formal
performance assessment systems, informal networks such as
the Performance Assessment Network (PAN) and the circulation
of performance reports facilitate lesson learning and
support the adoption of best practice. A recent example was a seminar series,
'Monitoring
poverty: from donor policing to citizens' empowerment'.
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