Results Management & AccountabilityResults Management and AccountabilityIntroduction UNDP’s mission is grounded in the Millennium Declaration and is aimed at helping to achieve lasting improvements in people’s lives, and to expand the choices and options available to them. The achievement of this mission and the realization of the MDGs call for a focused, efficient and effective organization that serves as a valuable development partner to its stakeholders and works with other parts of the UN toward achieving national goals. This, in turn, requires a strong results-oriented approach deeply embedded in the culture of the organization, and fully supported by institutional mechanisms for accountability. This chapter of the UNDP Programme and Operations Guide specifically addresses the new corporate results framework introduced by the 2008-11 Strategic Plan (extended to 2013). It also briefly outlines the new policies and guidelines on accountability and risk management, and their application to results management practices in UNDP operations. Additionally, it incorporates other important changes to existing guidelines and procedures which will impact on the regular results planning, monitoring and reporting exercises undertaken by business units. The chapter: a) Explains the results management framework of UNDP, including the Strategic Plan and its relationship to UNDP’s development programmes and management work-plans; b) Provides step by step guidance on (i) setting annual targets for development programmes, (ii) formulating annual management work-plans, and (iii) formulating unit risk management strategies; c) Provides additional guidance to ensure that all units focus on results rather than activities. 1.0. Description This section outlines the context, the methodology and the key features of results-based management (RBM) in UNDP. It describes the evolution of RBM in UNDP in recent years, its main features, and the policies and guidelines related to its application within the organization. Results Based Management (RBM) in UNDP In general terms, RBM is a strategic management approach aimed at ensuring that activities achieve desired results. It stresses results (outputs generating outcomes generating impacts) rather than inputs and activities, and provides a basic framework for strategic thinking, impacting directly on how planning, reporting and learning are reflected in an organization’s everyday work. The notion of results and "managing for results" is not new to UNDP. For many years, the organization has been working to support development changes and produce results, but its emphasis was primarily on managing inputs and activities. This emphasis changed in 1998 with the introduction of a formalized results-based management approach in UNDP. Since then, the challenge has been to constantly improve this approach and its underlying systems, and to revise work processes in ways that reflect greater results orientation without altering the fundamentally decentralized and demand-driven nature of the work of the organization and its responsiveness to national priorities. The Multi-Year Funding Framework (MYFF) was introduced in 2000 as UNDP’s primary corporate strategic planning instrument. The MYFF represented an important advance for UNDP and various reviews have concluded that its introduction helped to achieve better focus and to promote a culture of results management in the organization. 2008 sees the introduction of a number of important innovations for RBM in UNDP: Strategic Plan: For the period 2008-2011, a Strategic Plan replaces the MYFF. The Strategic Plan differs from the MYFF in that it introduces major new objectives for the organization, and has established some clear and specific performance indicators and targets. With the introduction of the Strategic Plan, individual business units will be able to derive guidance from corporate results and targets for management, development and UN coordination activities to allow more detailed planning on the unit level, properly supported by an integrated, enhanced RBM system. The plan sets the overall strategic vision and programme objectives of UNDP for this period and provides direction for support to programme countries to achieve national development objectives. The plan outlines the priorities that UNDP supports based on its mandate and comparative advantages, and signals the ways in which the organization works to enhance its development effectiveness, including its focus on national ownership, national capacity development, and gender equality and women’s empowerment. Accountability Framework: Accountability in UNDP is premised on its responsibility to stakeholders, programme countries and donors, and on its contribution to the achievement of national development priorities. This is operationalized at the country level through its development activities and at the corporate level through its accountability to the Executive Board. UNDP recognizes the increased international focus on accountability within the evolving aid and development environment. The accountability of UNDP is informed by General Assembly resolution 59/250 on the triennial comprehensive policy review, which articulates that national governments have the primary responsibility for the development of their countries, and for development outcomes. In addition, recipient governments bear the primary responsibility for coordinating external assistance on the basis of national strategies and priorities. UNDP is accountable for contributing to those results in the most relevant, efficient and effective way. UNDP is therefore committed to enhancing accountability within the organization and in all its operations and partnerships, and to promoting shared goals between donors and recipients, in order to enhance participation and transparency. The UNDP accountability framework (currently being discussed with the Executive Board) is based on a hierarchy of three tiers of accountability with clearly defined responsibilities and supporting mechanisms: (a) Organizational accountability. UNDP (through the Administrator and the Associate Administrator, individually and collectively) is accountable to the Executive Board for management direction and for achieving the agreed results of the updated strategic plan. (b) Programmatic accountability builds on the premise that the accountability for overall development outcomes rests with the government, whereas there is joint accountability between the government and UNDP for the portion of programmes/outcomes funded by UNDP. At the country level, UNDP works collaboratively with programme country governments in determining development results. The heads of UNDP offices, in turn, are accountable to the regional bureaux for contributions towards meeting the agreed-upon development results. Their accountability will include the applied development standards and approaches, country programme documents, action plans and annual work plans developed with the government or with programme outcome boards and project committees chaired by Government. (c) Staff accountability. Individuals (including managers) in UNDP are accountable to the organization for expected ethical and professional conduct, and to their managers on how they discharge the authorities conferred upon or delegated to them in delivering agreed performance results and budgets. Results-Based Budgeting: As of January 2008, UNDP has converted to a results-based biennial support budget. The 2008-2009 Biennial Support Budget and the 2008-2011 Programming Arrangements set the overall framework for the use of regular resources in UNDP and are the principal financial instruments supporting the implementation of the UNDP 2008-2011 Strategic Plan. The biennial support budget is organized by functions representing major groupings of activities funded from regular and extra budgetary resources, and for which regular resources are appropriated by the Executive Board. Each function has selected strategic results to be achieved, which serve as justification for the proposed allocation. This is a departure from previous input-based budgeting approaches, where the justification was presented in terms of inputs (a listing of organizational units and a staffing table). The key management results are organized under 19 management functions – 16 of which are harmonized with UNICEF and UNFPA, and three of which are specific to UNDP. All business units are now required to prepare management work plans in a results-oriented format. This is intended to help improve the management of resources and how they are linked to operational outputs. Risk Management: An enterprise risk management (ERM) framework has been introduced as an important new component of UNDP operations and is a vital pillar of the RBM system. The framework builds on the organization’s growing body of knowledge on risk by consolidating, centralizing and standardizing UNDP’s risk management procedures and tools. It includes processes to integrate ERM into UNDP’s planning, operational and management practices. Furthermore, it integrates all elements of UNDP’s risk management activities into one comprehensive system that enhances effective strategic planning and decision making. The ERM sub process explains how to apply the cycle for risk management through five simple steps. It also defines the roles, responsibilities and accountability levels needed to ensure proper risk management. The Enhanced RBM System: important enhancements have been made to UNDP’s RBM systems to support the implementation of the Strategic Plan and results-based budgeting framework, as well as the wider processes of results management in UNDP. These enhancements include the creation of an integrated RBM Platform designed to facilitate more effective results management by all business units. The enhanced results management platform integrates many of the performance management tools that have been developed independently within UNDP in recent years. This will essentially provide all staff with a “one-stop-shop” for planning, monitoring and reporting their everyday work. Guidance on using this new platform is found through the link in the paragraph above. UNDP Results-Based Management Framework The table and diagram below summarize UNDP overall results-based management framework.
The RBM hierarchy and process The development results framework : As the name suggests, RBM when applied to development work is about achieving development results which, in turn, have the effect of creating tangible positive changes in the lives of people in developing countries. In using RBM, it is necessary to develop a logical link between the means at the unit’s disposal (inputs) and the changes that the unit is asked to support in developing countries and globally. This process of linking the means with the desired ends is the chain of results – or the logical chart of the process of turning inputs into activities into outputs which are UNDP’s contributions to national outcomes that impact positively on the poor. In the Strategic Plan, UNDP has identified a goal for each of its four focus areas. These goals are essentially "the higher-order objective to which UNDP development interventions are intended to contribute" and are based on helping developing countries to achieve the MDGs. At the country level, and in developing country programmes, the highest level goal is the national goal or priority, to which UNDAF outcomes are related. Below the level of national goals and UNDAF outcomes are country programme outcomes which are the expected development changes in developing countries for which UNDP is one contributor and shares accountability with government and other partners. These outcomes are nationally-owned and are normally stated as development changes of such significance that their achievement requires the collaborative efforts of many stakeholders. UNDP’s contribution to achieving outcomes is done though outputs produced by development programmes and projects. The Strategic Plan’s development results matrix lists the corporate outputs that UNDP can produce globally and which are a corporate contribution to the global outcomes articulated in the plan. These are essentially products and services that UNDP will produce during the period of the Strategic Plan and which will have the potential for beneficial applications in many countries and regions. In UNDP country programmes, outputs are the country offices’ contributions to the nationally-owned outcomes. These outputs are normally defined as products and services delivered by UNDP and are essentially the aggregate results created by UNDP activities. Conceptually, achieving an outcome may require UNDP to achieve a number of outputs, government to achieve a number of outputs and other national stakeholders and donors to achieve a number of their outputs. As such, UNDP is not solely accountable for achieving the outcome but it is accountable for achieving its planned outputs. Effective development programming within UNDP requires a clearly formulated high-quality chain of results (results framework). This means that outcomes and outputs must be realistic, and be properly and logically formulated and include performance indicators that meet quality standards. For further guidance on developing outcomes, outputs and indicators, see RBM in UNDP Technical Note. For further information on the process of defining a programme please go to the chapter on programme and project management. UNDP’s management work-plans also have to be results oriented and reflect a logical hierarchy of results. The achievement of both country-specific and corporate management outputs is the basis for UNDP’s effectiveness as an organization and provides the platform on which development work takes place and development results are in turn achieved. 2.0 Relevant Policies Strategic Plan 2008-2011 (Extended to 2013) UN common understanding on the human rights based approach to development |
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