Concept Overview

As UNDP and HABITAT, on behalf of the United Nations Development Group (UNDP), and the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments continue the consultation on “Localizing the post-2015 agenda,” Results-Based Accountability™ (RBA) should be adopted as a framework for local action.  Distinct from Results-Based Management (RBM) utilized by the United Nations, RBA can be used for planning, management and budgeting.

RBA is currently being used in over 12 countries and is growing in popularity as a result of the simplicity and rigor it brings in fostering multi-sector participation in creating measurable improvements for customers and communities.

All six themes of the dialogue on the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda (localizing the post 2015 agenda, helping to strengthen capacities and build effective institutions, participatory monitoring for accountability, partnership with civil society, engaging with the private sector, and culture and development) can be supported by the three core concepts of RBA.  The RBA concepts include:

 

  1. Distinguishing between population and performance accountability: Communities should be able to determine the population-level quality of life conditions they want to improve (e.g. Healthy People) and indicators that quantify each population-level result (e.g. Infant Mortality Rate as an indicator for Healthy People). This will allow partners from all sectors to align their work and create performance-level measures to manage programs (services) and quantify their contribution to population quality of life.
  2. Having three types of performance-level measures for each program (or service): Any program (or service) can manage their performance and quantify their contribution towards population results and indicators by categorizing their performance measures into the following three common-sense categories 1.) How much do we do? 2.) How well do we do it? 3.)Is anyone better off?
  3. Using Turn the Curve Thinking to facilitate data-driven, transparent decision-making:  Turn the Curve Thinking is a series of questions asked in a specific order to get any group from talk to action.  The transparency created allows for participation from all sectors in place-based planning and better management of teams within different organizations.  Because RBA uses plain language it supports broad community participation in this process.

 

Places to learn more about RBA include:

 

Contact:

Adam Luecking

Clear Impact, CEO

adam@clearimpact.com

Clear Impact submitted the above language to http://www.worldwewant2015.org/ as part of the ongoing “Dialogues on Implementation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda” an initiative of the United Nations Development Program.