Practice Area: Performance Management and Service Delivery

Governments need to know if their services, programs, and projects are performing as intended, achieving their stated goals, and doing so in the most efficient and effective manner. To do this leaders need the skills and the tools to effectively manage resources and measure results. Without the right tools, government officials are not able to make the fully informed decisions about policy, resource allocation, or day-to-day management that would maximize their ability to provide better government services. UI works to strengthen public management skill in a number of areas including Performance Management and Public Service Delivery.

Performance Management: Information is the lifeblood of good public policy. Governments – local, regional, and national—need to know if their services, programs, and projects are performing as intended, achieving their stated goals, and doing so in the most efficient and effective manner. Without good performance information, government officials are not able to make the fully informed decisions about policy, resource allocation, or day-to-day management that would maximize their ability to provide better government services. Similarly, citizens can use objective information on government performance to encourage government to be responsive to their needs. Finally, development partners need information to understand if the projects they support are having an impact as intended. Unfortunately, in many places and on many projects, monitoring and evaluation is too often an afterthought.

The regular development and measurement of indicators, the collection of program data, and the evaluation of services, programs and projects leads to improved performance of public agency programs, organizations, or individuals through improved decision/policy making, resource allocation, and service delivery.

Performance management and evaluation as practiced by UI is not about developing a standardized set of indicators or simply collecting data. Drawing on experience from around the globe and a variety of flexible, innovative techniques, UI works with partners to incorporate appropriate monitoring and evaluation techniques into management systems early on so that results can be utilized by decision makers to change course. UI assists a wide range of clients.

Public Service Delivery: : In many developing countries, substantial improvement in public service delivery is key to achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction in line with the MDGs. Public services in the main social sectors (such as basic education, public health services, and so on) can have a major impact on economic growth and poverty reduction, while ‘typical’ local services -such as garbage collection an street lighting- are often equally important in achieving with clean, safe and vibrant local communities. As the government level closest to the communities that they serve, the local public sector plays a critical role in efficient and equitable public service delivery across virtually the whole range of public services.

Strengthening public service delivery often does not only require strengthening the capacity of local institutions and officials, but typically also requires creating a governance systems that ensures that citizen preferences and feedback are taken on board as part of the planning and service delivery process. Our technical assistance is based on a results-focused and participatory approach that leads to better government performance and increased citizen satisfaction.