Results Based Management System
GGGI began implementing its Strategic Plan 2015-2020, in 2015, together with a new RBM approach through the adoption of GGGI’s original CRF and output-based budgeting in the biennium WPB. Within GGGI, the RBM serves as a strategic management tool that integrates and drives its value chain business process and services towards the achievement of higher-level outcomes and impact, which align with partner countries NDC and SDG commitments and their national development priorities.
GGGI’s RBM system is outlined in the figure above. It connects the various steps in the project cycle along its established value chain through causal linkages, utilizing a feedback loop that facilitates the necessary adjustments and improvements to the results delivery and monitoring process. The RBM process points to quality of design, implementation and reporting of results generated by our support to the partner countries in the transition to a model of green growth.
The Refreshed Strategic Plan, 2015-2020 adopted six SOs as focal areas of targeted impact in GGGI’s operations. These SOs form the core of GGGI’s RBM system and focus its operations on measurable impact that anchor in-country and global programmatic activities to partner countries NDC and SDG commitments. This shift from a traditional, input-based approach, to a results-based approach challenges GGGI to define its contributions to the six SOs against partner countries’ official targets. These changes have redefined GGGI’s long-term goals and results framework and will set the organization’s ambitions high in ensuring its organizational relevance and value addition in the context of the global compacts.
Results Reporting
What is Corporate Results Reporting?
1. Corporate results reporting is the annual process of reporting on the delivery of GGGI’s Strategy 2030 through the aggregation of its biennium WPB programmatic, financial and operational results against its Corporate Results Framework (CRF) performance indicators and targets.
The new phase of results reporting will be at the country program level and Strategic Outcomes level. The objective is to measure the extent to which GGGI has delivered its Strategy 2030 and impacted the transformation for its partner countries towards inclusive green growth.
What is the Corporate Results Framework?
2. The CRF is a strategic results management tool which outlines the selected key performance indicators and targets against which the delivery of GGGI’s Strategy 2030 through its WPB programmatic and non-programmatic results are measured.
The revised CRF 2019-2020 was reviewed and approved by the GGGI Council in October 2019 to provide a measurable basis for tracking and reporting on progress in delivering on the Refreshed Strategic Plan 2015-2020. Where technically feasible, targets have been included based on the results frameworks of projects implemented in the WPB 2019-2020 biennium. The revised CRF has 25 outputs and outcome indicators, 10 of which have targets. Balanced scored cards have also been incorporated to assess the quality of adopted policies, investment commitments, capacity building activities and knowledge products. The project results frameworks are also subject to periodic revision over the course of the project lifetime to enable mid-course adjustments and early identification of shortfalls.
What is the purpose of Corporate Results Reporting?
3. Corporate results reporting is a component of PCM 5 which fulfills GGGI’s reporting obligations. The process serves a range of strategic, accountability, transparency and communication requirements including:
i. Reporting results of implementation of the WPB and Strategy 2030 to GGGI’s governance organs, e.g., MPSC, Council and Assembly.
ii. Meeting bilateral reporting requirements of individual donors under their funding agreements with GGGI.
iii. Preparation and publication of corporate communication and messaging products including GGGI’s Annual Report, website, newsletter and communication teasers.
iv. Strengthen GGGI as a results-driven, transparent and accountable organization.
v. Strengthen GGGI’s risk management ensuring that projects and corporate results are tracked and aligned with Strategy 2030 and are effective and delivering value for money.
4. PCM 5 sets out the requirements for GGGI’s project and corporate results reporting, including what, how, when and by whom? It describes in detail the process of collecting, quality assurance and aggregating GGGI’s annual project and corporate results from the End of Year (EOY) result reports and preparing GGGI’s Results Reports, Annual Reports and bilateral reports to individual donors. It also includes steps to collect information about programmatic achievements that may fall outside specific performance metrics in the CRF to contribute to knowledge products describing important insights, innovations, and best practices in green growth.
Since 2015, the outcomes of the Strategic Plan 2015-2020 were delivered through projects that were designed and planned in two-year cycles under the first biennium through the WPB 2015-2016, and the second biennium through the WPB 2017-2018.
However, GGGI has now progressed towards an envelope budgeting system in the WPB 2019-2020.
During the above period, GGGI deployed a PCM which defines a series of stages through the lifecycle of a project. The key PCM stages included programming and design, resource mobilization, implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation.
Under the umbrella of the iGROW initiative to adopt simpler and more effective business processes, GGGI has taken steps since the end of 2017 to revamp its PCM (see Figure 19). This was a critical need identified in 2017. GGGI’s new PCM is divided into 5 parts (PCM 1-5) that include: (i) strategy; (ii) resource mobilization; (ii) investment project development; (iv) project implementation and management; and (v) project monitoring and evaluation. Process manuals have been developed for each of these PCMs 2-5 while the manual for PCM 1 will be ready by mid-2020. The intent of these new PCM tools is to be able to turn an idea into a project, working across divisions, and applying enough review and consultation, to feed a healthy pipeline of both policy and investment projects, as well as mixed policy with investment projects.
A critical end part of this transformation is to ensure that GGGI obtains decent process automation. GGGI Online, which went live in January 2019, provides a single platform for GGGI to manage project information, from project development through project implementation to project closure, covering proposals, logframes, financial information and risk management. It provides a common platform for GGGI’s results framework to be applied, and for results to be collected and aggregated. It supports knowledge management by making all project information available to all staff in GGGI, promoting cross-country learning and replication. It enables flexibility and traceability in project delivery by providing clear change control in project management.
5. The process applies to all core and earmarked funded projects.
6. There are several key actors in GGGI that collectively contribute to this process and they include:
- The ‘Results Team’ refers to the Team in the Strategy Unit of the Office of the Director-General that is responsible for coordinating GGGI’s results management and annual reporting.
- The term ‘Project Manager’ refers to the staff identified in the ERP logframe as holding responsibility for overall delivery of a project and managing the entire project budget associated with it. Every project will have one Project Manager.
- The term ‘Output Coordinator’ refers to staff identified in the ERP logframe as holding responsibility for the delivery of a project output. An Output Coordinator can manage one or more outputs for the same project or different projects. Likewise, a Project Manager may also be an Output Coordinator for one or more outputs related to their project.
- The ‘Regional Head of Programs’ will oversee the reporting of the project for their regions (Asia and Pacific, Africa and Europe, Latin America, Caribbean and Middle-East) by their country teams and will validate and quality assure them before they are submitted to the ADGs and Divisional Directors for approval.
- The ‘Finance Department’ is responsible for providing the calendar year’s budget figures, project disbursements and spending, and audited financial accounts.
7. To assist with the preparation of the project reports, certain project concepts and terms that form the components of the project results chain or value chain will need to be clearly defined and understood to ensure consistency in the standard of qualitative and quantitative results reported. These concepts and terms include:
- Impact: The long-term development objective or overall goal to which the project contributes. Changes at this level can be assessed in terms of economic, environmental and social benefits but take longer to achieve and a project only contributes to this goal. Changes at this level occur due to other factors as well, and the project cannot fully attribute the change only to its interventions.
- Outcome: The demonstratable changes in human behaviors, knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, awareness and conditions resulting from the influence of project outputs. They represent the medium-term results.
- Output: What the project will deliver in terms of products and services produced or competences and capacities established directly as a result of project activities. Outputs are the project deliverables that the project is in full control of; they are the immediate or short-term results which provide evidence that the activity did occur. Note that a completed activity does not necessarily mean an output has been achieved.
- Activity: Each task or action that the project will carry out using resources and methods to achieve the intended outputs. It constitutes the process of converting inputs (human resources and expertise, finance and technology) into outputs.
- Input: Each of the required resources that a project needs to carry out the activities and product the outputs including finance, budget, and human resources and expertise, time, technology and materials.
Reporting on Projects and Corporate Results
8. The key deliverables for GGGI’s annual reporting include:
i. Results Report
ii. Annual Report
iii. Project Results Reports (PRRs)
iv. Bilateral Donors Reports
v. International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) data reporting.
In addition, many GGGI results and impacts will be captured along with more qualitative descriptions, insights, innovations, and best practices that capture the broader green growth experience for use in the annual State of Green Growth report.
9. The implementation timeline for when these reports are prepared, completed and approved are outlined in the table below.
Evaluation
10. Evaluation supports GGGI to realize its desired green growth impact, by providing systematic and evidence-based approaches and tools to measure the achievement of (or progress towards) green growth impacts and informing decisions on how project interventions can be improved, scaled up or replicated elsewhere.
11. In doing so, evaluation complements other key goals in GGGI’s Strategy 2030, particularly:
• Assessing progress of programs towards the strategic outcomes;
• Strengthening GGGI as a results-driven, transparent and accountable organization;
• Promoting continuous improvement by ensuring evaluation lessons are used to inform country programming and project design; and
• Contributing to improved value for money.
12. Consistent with OECD DAC definitions widely observed in the international development sector, evaluation is defined here as “the systematic and objective assessment of an ongoing or completed project, program or policy, its design, implementation or results”.
13. There are 3 types of approaches to evaluation of projects:
• Earmarked evaluations: Commissioned and managed byproject managers as part of project funding agreements, funded from earmarked budgets.
• Core evaluations: Commissioned and managed by IEU as part of GGGI Annual Evaluation Workplans and funded from core budget.
• Donor evaluations: Commissioned and managed by donors (either jointly or individually) as part of their internal policy requirements, funded from donor’s own budgets.
14. All 3 evaluation approaches typically involve the following 5 general steps:
• Step 1: Preparing a TOR for the evaluation
• Step 2: Engaging an independent evaluator
• Step 3: Conducting the evaluation and preparing the evaluation report
• Step 4: Preparing a GGGI management response
• Step 5: Communication of evaluation findings to key audiences
15. Specific responsibilities and processes relating to each step will vary from approach to approach. Further guidance on each approach is provided below, structured around the 5 steps above.
16. Within GGGI, IEU has overall responsibility for keeping track of all evaluation activities across GGGI, and providing advice, coordination or other support as required. The aim of this is to ensure that knowledge benefits are maximized, resources are not wasted due to duplication, and GGGI management responses are consistent across evaluations.
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