Tracking program performance : a review of objectives and indicators

officials in deciding whether to institute a centralized system of program performance monitoring, this report reviews Bureau- and Mission-level documentation of strategic objectives, targets, and indicators in an effort to identify areas of commonality and differences within and between regions. The principal finding is that there is great consistency of program emphases at the level of strategic objectives, notwithstanding the diversity in programs and regional-country situations. The core programs that emerged across the board are: maternal child health and increased market-driven and privatized trade, investment, and agriculture. Ancillary concerns are technology transfer, reduced government intervention and regulation, employment generation, and effective natural resource management. Differences that emerged are related to specific regional issues, e.g., democratic initiatives, which appeared significantly in the LAC and Asia regions, and not at all in Africa, where food security is a more urgent issue. However, identifying goals, objectives, targets, and indicators is complicated by different interpretations of terminology across regions and by the fact that a given statement may be a strategic objective in one program, a sub-target in another, and an indicator in another. Cross-cutting issues such as women in development or the environment were rarely found at the level of strategic objectives, but emerge somewhat among related indicators and even more so in country action plans, posing a problem of how to track them in a future monitoring system. Annexes contain reviews of the three regional Bureau portfolios.