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Date: 2024-08-17 Page is: DBtxt003.php bkTVM009032500
Burgess Manuscripts
TrueValueMetrics
ACTION INFORMATION FOR ALL OF SOCIETY
Metrics about the State, Progress and Performance of Society, the Environment and Economy
Metrics about Impact on People, Place, Planet and Profit
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Chapter 3
THERE ARE WAYS FORWARD
3-25 PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The sector perspective should not be ignored ... ... ...
The Project Form of Implementation

Sometimes a very good form of organization

Anyone that has worked closely with World Bank and other ODA projects knows that there is a huge difference between what is written down and what really gets done on the ground.
I never saw an ODA project that followed the book and was successful. Almost all of them were, by my fairly high corporate standards, abysmal failures. They did not follow the book, because that would have made them even worse. Once in a while the ODA resources were used well, and great results were achieved. But this was not done by following the book either.
The problem

So what is the problem. A quick look through what has been written about relief and development, or attending a conference on some aspect of relief and development will expose a zillion problems. It is not one problem, it is many. But because there seem to be a zillion problems, it is virtually impossible to figure which one of these problems is the most critical problem.
I had plenty of opportunities over the years to assess performance in development. It took me a long time, however, to realize that almost everything implemented in the ORDA world cost a lot and a lot of it was a complete waste of time, money and effort.
That is not to say that there were no needs for relief and development assistance. It is merely saying that the design and implementation of ORDA initiatives was disastrous. It raised the question of how ORDA work could be done more effectively than what I was being routinely practiced.

Where there is meant to be accounting

I was under the impression that the project was the entity that permitted organizations like USAID, the UN and the World Bank to manage their assistance programs ... but rather than providing a foundation of information that helps to understand the use and value of fund disbursement, they seem, rather to add to the confusion.

Project cycle

The standard project cycle is usually described as follows:
  1. Identification;
  2. Preparation;
  3. Appraisal;
  4. Negotiation;
  5. Disbursement and Implementation; and
  6. Evaluation.
The basic cycle is reasonable ... but when applied in most of the present relief and development organizations there is a lot of effort associated with the first four elements, and insufficient attention to the fifth. Within the disbursement and implementation part of the project cycle there is a totally inadequate amount of accounting and measurement of performance.

Where was the money disbursed?

It should be relatively easy to get a listing of where the money has been disbursed ... that is a listing of the projects, the implementing organizations and the amounts of money disbursed.

The amount of money disbursed can be either in the form of a listing of disbursements together with dates, or a cumulative total with date of the cumulation.

A list of this sort is about as basic an accounting report that one can design ... it is lists of this sort that are the basic of good accounting control, and it is incomprehensible that such lists are not easy to access from the public space.

What was the money used for?

It is also reasonable to expect to be able to have a listing of what each of the organizations used the money for ... the cost of the various activities carried out by the organization. Every well run organization has this sort of analytical or cost accounting data ... and if there is an organization that does not have this data, then one has to wonder why this organization was selected to be a project contractor.

With information about activities carried out by the organization, it should be possible to compare the work done under this project with similar work done by other contractors both in the same country and in other parts of the world. In an efficient relief and development sector one would expect the costs to be somewhat the same, with easily explained differences based on the special circumstances of each of the project ... in fact this information is not at all similar, mainly because few of the organizations are doing this sort of analysis and they merely spend the money without much attention to cost effectiveness and performance.

Did the project produce value?

If the relief and development communicy was serious about measuring performance there would be a requirement for projects to be evaluated based on the socio-enviro-economic value created. While this is a nominal part of the appraisal process at institutions like the World Bank, it is very much a theoretical construct at the time of the appraisal and not very much in evidence during the management of implementation and in subsequent evaluation. Even though value creation is the central raison d'etre for the project, not having metrics about this is nothing less than mind-boggling.

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