ODI Open letter to New SoS in UK

[John Short]

Interesting communication from Alison Evans to Andrew Mitchel.  Should there have been a specific focus on PFM?

http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/download/4849.pdf

[Napodano]

John Short,

what you posted goes well beyond PFM (hence the reason of moving the post under the Accra Agenda).

What the ODI director wrote is a well-thought checklist of issues all development practitoners should consider in implementing the Accra Agenda for Action.

Let me recap the issues made in the letter:
1.   With only five years left to realise the promise of the Millennium Development Goals, the international community must refocus its efforts.
2.   Think aid, think smart aid, but also think beyond aid.
3.   Global economic governance and the G-20.
4.   European development policy
5.   Climate financing.
6.   Trade.
7.   Migration.
8.   The private sector.
9.   Rebuilding in fragile states.
10.   Accountability.


Download the letter and see the concise but to-the-point recommendations for each point.

[petagny]

There's an interesting piece today by Bill Easterley on how Africa might have been set up (unintentionally) to miss the MDGs. Choose your indicators carefully!

http://aidwatchers.com/2010/06/was-africa-set-up-to-fail-on-the-millennium-development-goals/

[STONE]

An interesting initiative by Alison Evans.  John Short's question is a good one - should PFM have been stated? - well you'd expect a PFM boarder to say yes so yes is the answer.  Why isn't it mentioned explicitly - well that's  matter for ODI.  Also it could be that the PFM stuff is tied up in the references to accountability and transparency.  Unpacking these terms would lead to consideration of PFM - at least if PFM is ascribed the meanings that we understand.  But many will see PFM as covering accounting but not obviously accountability and all that it implies.

Easterly's piece is spot on and goes straight to the heart of SMART performance indicators.  He says its "so boring" - that is the key for me.  We all know how eyes glaze over when we stress the importance of SMART and SMARTER indicators - but if they are not SMART its hard to get good performance.  What gets done is what gets measured - so if its measured badly (indicators not SMART being part of that) then it'll get done badly.  PFM is all about improving public service delivery - including enabling the private sector - but for most people its boring and coming up with new ideas is much more rewarding than the grind of getting PFM systems to work.

Also we know that explaining the virtues of good PFM is way beyond the attention span of most ministers.  So perhaps AE was keeping the message simple.