NOTES FOR THE ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON "MOVING FROM OUTPUTS TO OUTCOMES" WASHINGTON D.C., 15-16 DECEMBER 2004
PROGRESS IN MOVING TO MEASURE AND REPORT ON RESULTS/OUTCOMES IN TANZANIA
(Summary of the current situation)
By: Paschal B. Assey Assistant Director Poverty Eradication Division Vice President's Office TANZANIA
DECEMBER 2004
Introduction: There is a general consensus now that we need to focus on results in all spheres of the National Development agenda. And there are initiatives that have been introduced that in essence strive to achieve this objective. These initiatives include the public sector reform program and the local government reform program, the public finance management reform program, the poverty reduction strategy process as well as the sector specific reforms programs. However these initiatives and processes were introduced at different times, have different motivations driving them and are coordinated by different institutions. This poses a big challenge of coordination and harmonization internally particularly when you take into consideration that different processes are being supported by different development partners. What were the political decisions taken and by whom to start moving towards a focus on outcomes? What signals in the political context said it was time to try and go beyond a focus on outputs? Some of the key factors that led to focus on results: • As the policy dialogue continued to be opened to the general public some kind of dissatisfaction began to emerge that despite the good policies and plans in papers, people wanted to know the real change that has happened as a result of the policies and strategies (the so what question). • There was also donor fatigue also pointing to the same direction – what real results on the ground can be attributed to their development support and cooperation. • Beginning mid-1990s there was a growing international consensus to focus on poverty reduction as the ultimate goal for development and countries signed and made joint commitments in international conferences to abide to the consensus (remember the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995; the Monterrey consesus; the Rome declaration; and the Marrakesh consesus ). • Increased liberalized systems, civil liberty, multi-partism all provided political pressure to start focusing on the results on the ground and not only financial resources that have been deployed and infrastructures that have been built. What efforts have been made to change the culture and incentives in the public sector to encourage a focus on outcomes? The different initiatives that have been introduced as a way of reforming the public sector to focus on outcomes/results are: • In public service management there is the Public Sector Reform Programme whose primary objective is to reform the public service to encourage a focus on results – management for results/outcomes. o Strategic plans were introduced and linked with budgets through the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) o Open appraisal system to replace the confidential assessments of performance o Selected Access to Salary Enhancement (SASE) introduced
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In the general development agenda arena we have the PRS process which aims to ensure poverty reduction objective is high in the country's development agenda. The PRS process aims to focus development strategies and plans to the final outcomes/results which is eradication of absolute poverty and improvement of the quality of life in general. o Has operational targets in three broad cluster namely; Growth and reduction of income poverty; improvement of the quality of life and social wellbeing and improved governance and accountability. o A poverty monitoring and evaluation system was introduced to track progress using a set of core indicators. In public finance management there is the Public Finance Management Reform Program which introduced two sister processes whose major objective is to achieve performance budgeting. o the Public Expenditure Process (PER); and o Medium Term Expenditure Framework At sector levels there are sectoral reform programmes that have led to development of sector policies, strategies and programmes key among them being the Legal Sector Reform, the Education Sector reform, the Health Sector Reform, the Agriculture Sector Reforms, the Road Sector Reforms, the Financial Sector Reforms, etc.
What are the major hindrances/obstacles in moving forward and deepening the results based approach to public sector management? The main operational challenges include the following: i) These reforms introducing the results based approach are linked but the linkages are not that obvious to everybody. The reforms were introduced at different times and are led/coordinated by different institutions which consider themselves to have mandate over their respective reforms without a well recognized and accepted overall coordinator. There are different motivations and operational instruments driving the different reform processes: The Public Finance Management Reform Program (PFMRP) –the motivation is access to Government Budget i.e. enlarging budget ceiling of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies. The Public Sector Reform Program (PSRP)- the motivation is access to SASE scheme The Specific Sector Reforms -motivation is establishment of sector Basket Funds/Pooled Funds The poverty reduction Strategy (PRS) process -the motivation is guaranteed access to budget funds – ring fenced budgets iii) The reforms are more led by technolocracts and not politicians although there is a strong political will for reforms. All these point to the challenge/operational challenge of coordination.
Lessons and the Way Forward: • More advocacy of the linkages to ensure that all the reforms are linked together and the linkages are well understood. • Appointment of a coordinating institution with capacity to coordinate the whole process and be given a political clout. • Build adequate capacity to manage the reform process including the necessary incentives.
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