Using development goals and targets for donor agency performance measurement 1

Abstract

In Chapter 1 it is suggested that the dominance of the International Development Targets and subsequently the Millennium Development Goals in current development policy is partly a consequence of a stress on results-based measurement, which seeks to judge development agency performance against outcomes. However, whilst such an approach is intuitively appealing, there are a number of potential problems with it, which are addressed in this chapter. The chapter starts by setting out a list of the desirable properties of performance measures, and then considers how these measures can be applied using logic models. In the light of this discussion, the International Development Targets and Millennium Development Goals are assessed. It is argued that although they are reasonable measures of progress, they cannot easily be used to monitor the performance of particular agencies, as is illustrated by the attempts of UK aid agency the Department for International Development (DFID) to internalise the development targets in developing its own strategy.

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