Governance And Sector Outcomes

A critical issue in international development is how donor-funded programs can support sustainable and long-lasting changes in assisted countries. Among the factors associated with sustainability is improved governance. However, many donor-funded initiatives are focused on achieving results in specific sectors, such as health, education, and agriculture. How can how governance interventions contribute to achieving sector-specific results? This brief explores this question and discusses how international development practice has incorporated recognition of the links between governance and sector outcomes. The brief develops a stylized continuum of how governance elements relate to sector interventions and contribute to expected outcomes. We discuss factors that either impede or impel governance integration and close with some observations regarding prospects for integrated programming. The audience for the brief is the international development policy and practitioner communities, and secondarily, academics with an interest in the topic. Key take-aways include: (1) there is ample evidence of positive contributions from improved governance to sector-specific outcomes, but few guideposts exist for practical and effective governance integration; (2) barriers to integration include urgent sector priorities that overshadow governance concerns, requirements to demonstrate progress towards ambitious sector targets, and complex choices related to measurement; and (3) sustainability and self-reliance are major drivers for integration and are facilitated by the flexibility and adaptation that governance integration enables.

A critical issue in international development is how donor-funded programs can support sustainable and long-lasting changes in assisted countries. Among the factors associated with sustainability is improved governance. However, many donor-funded initiatives are focused on achieving results in specific sectors, such as health, education, and agriculture. How can how governance interventions contribute to achieving sector-specific results? This brief explores this question and discusses how international development practice has incorporated recognition of the links between governance and sector outcomes. The brief develops a stylized continuum of how governance elements relate to sector interventions and contribute to expected outcomes. We discuss factors that either impede or impel governance integration and close with some observations regarding prospects for integrated programming. The audience for the brief is the international development policy and practitioner communities, and secondarily, academics with an interest in the topic. Key take-aways include: (1) there is ample evidence of positive contributions from improved governance to sector-specific outcomes, but few guideposts exist for practical and effective governance integration; (2) barriers to integration include urgent sector priorities that overshadow governance concerns, requirements to demonstrate progress towards ambitious sector targets, and complex choices related to measurement; and (3) sustainability and self-reliance are major drivers for integration and are facilitated by the flexibility and adaptation that governance integration enables.

Achieving broad-based socio-economic development requires interventions that bridge disciplines, strategies, and stakeholders. Effective sustained progress requires more than simply an accumulation of sector projects, and poverty reduction, individual wellbeing, community development, and societal advancement do not fall neatly into sectoral categories. However, researchers and practitioners recognize key operational challenges to achieving effective integration that stem from the structures and processes associated with the current practice of international development. Integration calls for the intentional linking of intervention designs, implementation, and evaluation across sectors and disciplines to achieve mutually reinforcing outcomes. In this report, we summarize the results of a study we conducted to explore the challenges facing governance programs that integrate with sector interventions to achieve governance outcomes and contribute to sector outcomes. Through a review of policy documents and project reports from recent integrated governance programs and interviews with donor and practitioner staff, we found three integrated governance programming variants, an emphasis on citizen and government collaboration to improve service delivery, interventions that serve as the glue between sectors, and a balancing act for indicators to measure contribution to sectoral outcomes. Our analysis identified four key success factors: contextual readiness, the application of learning and adapting approaches, donor support, and recognition of the limitations of integrated governance. We then discuss recommendations and implications and for answering the challenge of integrating governance and sector programming to achieve development outcomes.

This book focuses on the implementation of digital strategies in the public sectors in the US, Mexico, Brazil, India and Germany. The case studies presented examine different digital projects by looking at their impact as well as their alignment with their national governments’ digital strategies. The contributors assess the current state of digital government, analyze the contribution of digital technologies in achieving outcomes for citizens, discuss ways to measure digitalization and address the question of how governments oversee the legal and regulatory obligations of information technology. The book argues that most countries formulate good strategies for digital government, but do not effectively prescribe and implement corresponding policies and programs. Showing specific programs that deliver results can help policy makers, knowledge specialists and public-sector researchers to develop best practices for future national strategies.

This book highlights the use of an outcome-oriented view of performance to frame and assess the desirability of the effects produced by adopted policies, so to allow governments not only to consider effects in the short, but also the long run. Furthermore, it does not only focus on policy from the perspective of a single unit or institution, but also under an inter-institutional viewpoint. This book features theoretical and empirical research on how public organizations have evolved their performance management systems toward outcome measures that may allow one to better deal with wicked problems. Today, ‘wicked problems’ characterize most of governmental planning involving social issues. These are complex policy problems, underlying high risk and uncertainty, and a high interdependency among variables affecting them. Such problems cannot be clustered within the boundaries of a single organization, or referred to specific administrative levels or ministries. They are characterized by dynamic complexity, involving multi-level, multi-actor and multi-sectoral challenges. In the last decade, a number of countries have started to develop new approaches that may enable to improve cohesion, to effectively deal with wicked problems. The chapters in this book showcase these approaches, which encourage the adoption of more flexible and pervasive governmental systems to overcome such complex problems. Outcome-Based Performance Management in the Public Sector is divided into five parts. Part 1 aims at shedding light on problems and issues implied in the design and implementation of “outcome-based” performance management systems in the public sector. Then Part 2 illustrates the experiences, problems, and evolving trends in three different countries (Scotland, USA, and Italy) towards the adoption of outcome-based performance management systems in the public sector. Such analyses are conducted at both the national and local government levels. The third part of the book frames how outcome-based performance management can enhance public governance and inter-institutional coordination. Part 4 deals with the illustration of challenges and results from different public sector domains. Finally the book concludes in Part 5 as it examines innovative methods and tools that may support decision makers in dealing with the challenges of outcome-based performance management in the public sector. Though the book is specifically focused on a research target, it will also be useful to practitioners and master students in public administration .

In the recent decade, governments worldwide are increasingly focusing on being community-centric and outcomes-based. Consequently, they are starting to move towards outcomes-based approaches to public financial management systems. An outcomes-based approach allows government service agencies and specific program areas to organize and communicate priorities to achieve what matters and makes a difference rather than just going through the motions. Empirical evidence on how government agencies in emerging economies go about this contemporary approach and issues affecting these practices is limited. This edited collection of chapters is aimed at covering public sector reform and performance management in emerging economies with special reference to outcomes-based approaches in practice in government services. Practices from developed economies contained in the first book on the topic have been published by Routledge in February 2021. The insights offered on the topic are written by renowned scholars who have identified important issues pertinent to those interested in public sector governance, accounting, accountability, and performance management effectiveness in emerging economies. The book will be highly accessible to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of accounting, public administration, development studies, and other non-accounting audiences alike.

As the global community works toward the Sustainable Development Goals, closer integration between governance and sectoral interventions offers a promising, yet unproven avenue for improving health service delivery. We interrogate what value an integrated governance approach, intentionally combining governance and sectoral investments in strategic collaboration, adds to health service readiness and delivery using data from a study in Senegal. Our quasi-experimental research design compared treatment and control communes to determine the value added of an integrated governance approach in Senegal compared to health interventions alone. Our analysis shows that integrated governance is associated with improvements in some health service delivery dimensions, specifically, in aspects of health facility access and quality. These findings—that health facilities are more open, with higher quality infrastructure and staff more frequently following correct procedures after integrated governance treatment—suggests a higher level of service readiness. We suggest that capacity building of governance structures and an emphasis on social accountability could explain the added value of integrating governance and health programming. These elements may help overcome a critical bottleneck between citizens and local government often seen with narrower sector or governance-only approaches. We discuss implications for health services in Senegal, international development program design, and further research.

As the global community works toward the Sustainable Development Goals, closer integration between governance and sectoral interventions offers a promising, yet unproven avenue for improving health service delivery. We interrogate what value an integrated governance approach, intentionally combining governance and sectoral investments in strategic collaboration, adds to health service readiness and delivery using data from a study in Senegal. Our quasi-experimental research design compared treatment and control communes to determine the value added of an integrated governance approach in Senegal compared to health interventions alone. Our analysis shows that integrated governance is associated with improvements in some health service delivery dimensions, specifically, in aspects of health facility access and quality. These findings—that health facilities are more open, with higher quality infrastructure and staff more frequently following correct procedures after integrated governance treatment—suggests a higher level of service readiness. We suggest that capacity building of governance structures and an emphasis on social accountability could explain the added value of integrating governance and health programming. These elements may help overcome a critical bottleneck between citizens and local government often seen with narrower sector or governance-only approaches. We discuss implications for health services in Senegal, international development program design, and further research.