Dear Colleagues, I am always intrigued by discussion about different metrics, and frequently come away with the impression that there is a high level of dissatisfaction about metrics as currently practiced.
I was involved in the early days of management information systems, before it was normal for corporations to have complete and comprehensive information systems to provide managers with all the key information needed to make good decisions. One of the keys for management information success was always to combine the raw accounting information with important operational information. Most departments do not have a "profit" bottom line, but there is certainly a big difference between a well run department and one that is sloppy and expensive, and this can almost always be measured using some very obvious metric. Management By Objective -- MBO was a fashion in the corporate world for a while, and often failed to produce much performance improvement except when it was integrated into the management information system, and then it became very valuable. In most development situations it is possible to articulate objectives that have social impact, and it should be possible to report against such objectives, as well as having the related accounting information for the cost of achieving the objectives. As far as I am concerned objectives can be anything that the entity wants them to be...a good system will help report the progress and the cost...and that is a big step forward in managing development. It is a separate step to think through the value of an objective. Value is what the development community should be seeking to maximise, though it seems to have been ignored in most development decision making for a very long time. I would argue that an individual, in a family and in a (beneficiary) community should be the main source of information to determine the value of any development objective. Of course this is how a working market economy functions...people will buy something if it is affordable and the value is higher than the price...people will produce something if its price is higher than its cost. Value adding is essentially the difference between cost and value. However, imitating this in an administered development environment is not always easy. Social objectives often have high value to people and families and communities, but the costs are also high and price then unaffordable. Delivering social services on a sustainable basis through subsidy may be the only option, but where it is possible, the dynamic of development would be better served by seeking ways for the community to earn enough so that social services are affordable. Development, in my view, has ignored far too much the potential of communities to have their productivity improved by appropriate investment and method improvement. Far too many projects have put the resources in the wrong place and ended up with a terrible waste of money, but investment in the right place can make a huge difference. And in the case of health and the current AIDS pandemic, social value has tremendous importance. But the enormous value of AIDS interventions should not be confused with the cost. The work needed to relate realized social value in the AIDS crisis with the related costs is important work, and should be an integral part of the management of all resources associated with the pandemic. From what I know of this field, I think we will be shocked at the ineffective way most resources in this segment of relief and development are used when the social value is assessed from the perspective of the SOUTH where the crisis is endemic. Most "experts" who have spent more than a few weeks on the ground have learned a lot about different implementation modalities and their successes and failures. But hardly any of this knowledge finds its way into the public domain, which is a pity. It is something that "transparency" would achieve, but for the moment it seems that there is more interest in talking about transparency than in actually doing transparency. My feeling is that this is in the process of changing. I am very hopeful that soon there will be some big changes in the way transparency, accounting and accountability and effective monitoring and evaluation (TAAME) is accomplished, and after that significant changes in the performance of development. Sincerely Peter Burgess ____________ Peter Burgess in New York Tel: 212 772 6918 Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Database http://www.afrifund.com/wiki/index.pcgi?page=AfrifundDatabase Coffee: http://afrifund.coffeefair.com Blog: http://taame.blogspot.com On 11/22/2004, Al Hammond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Vickram Crishna and others have written on this. From the perspective of > our research on successful BOP business models, we think that the > companies who have really done well have had both business and social > metrics, the latter articulated at the very top of the company. They > take the form of "We ought to serve poor rural customers to help build > our country--we have an obligation--but we will do it as a profitable > business". We think that the social metric is what empowers the company > staff to think outside the box, to work with and listen to community > groups and NGOs, to figure out more inventive approaches--so that they > can become sustainable (eg, profitable) while generating needed services > and the capacity to buy or make use of them. So we see these metrics as > not either-or, but as complimentary. ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
