Review 3 final 2 - TAU - National Treasury

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TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW | A Government with a Strategic Centre It is in such circumstances that flexible, iterative approaches, which acknowledge the actual process of change, and not only the achievement of predetermined outputs, may be more relevant. The TAU recently engaged with a team of international evaluators who did a review of the South African programmes, funded by a particular Development Partner, and we deliberated at length on this topic: “How do we ensure that our monitoring and reporting reflect the richness of what is done and achieved in our work” Our discussions on these matters forms part of a broader debate on the measurement dilemma that is taking place throughout the development and public sector world-wide. The tension between easily measurable results in the interest of accountability and control, and measurement of actual, meaningful change, in the interest of real development results, is stated rather bluntly by Natsios (2010): “…those development programs that are most precisely and easily measured are the least transformational, and those programs that are most transformational are the least measurable.” Measurement of capacity development is one of those tough dilemmas – many projects attempt to do some form of capacity development, but how is it measured A variety of options are available, and we talked to John Saxby (part of the international evaluation team) to find out more about his views on how an organisation like TAU can improve its monitoring and evaluation practice. (see article on page 19) Fia van Rensburg Technical Advisor References: Baser, H. A paper for the Cairo Workshop on Capacity Development March 28-29, 2011 http://www.impactalliance.org/ev_en.phpID=51579_201&ID2=DO_ TOPIC Caulkin, S. This isn’t an abstract problem. Targets can kill. The Observer, 22 March 2009. Gray, A and Jenkins, B. Government and Administration: Too Much Checking, Not Enough Doing Oxford Journals. Parliamentary Afrrairs Vol. 57 No. 2, 269 – 287 © Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government 2004. Natsios, A. The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development. Centre for Global Development. July 2010. (www.cgdev.org/content/ publications/detail/1424271) Serrat, O. The Most Significant Change Technique. Knowledge Solutions. Asian Development Bank. January 2009. http://epress.anu.edu/au/dialogue_methods/mobile_devices/ch)3s06. html …those development programs that are most precisely and easily measured are the least transformational, and those programs that are most transformational “are ” the least measurable. 18 page Enabling change for development
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UNIT REVIEW | Blending Voice and Text “Blending Voice and Text”: A Collage-type Article 1 - based on an Interview with John Saxby, Evaluator on a Mid -Term Review under Development Cooperation within South Africa’s Development Co-operation landscape First, thank you for the opportunity to reflect on my recent work in South Africa – as ever, a thoughtprovoking and challenging time. I’m flattered you should ask me to do an email interview for the TAU Review, and I hope ‘my notes’ are useful to the TAU and your readers. Let me take the liberty of clustering the four questions into two groups. Questions (1) and (4) touch on “what success looks like” – case studies, and stories of work done by the TAU and its clients. Questions (2) and (3) examine innovation – examples and opportunities. I will offer some observations on each of these two pairs of questions, drawing on what I learned during my recent work in South Africa. The core programming issue for the Mid-Term Review was the challenge of making institutions more effective, both in the public sector and in civil society. The TAU is obviously a primary actor in this task of “institutional development”, 1 A collage, in its true sense, is a collection of “bits and pieces”: cut out scenes and text that are pasted together to make a composite picture –with diversity and often disparity drawn together into a holistic view. This article is meant to ‘feel’ like a collage-showing a rich picture of some interesting and thought-provoking ideas; with the formal text transposed next to the ‘voice’ of the interviewee. or “building institutional capacity”- the enterprise has different names - in the public sector. So, I will refer to the TAU’s work in the public service, but also to other examples of this society-wide project (project under mid-term review). I should emphasize that these notes are my personal reflections, offered from the point of view of a sympathetic visitor. That said, I do owe a debt to the Development Partner concerned and International Development Co-operation Chief Directorate of National Treasury for giving me the opportunity to work on the review of the programme. Also, to the dozens of people who are working on the programme who gave me their time and consideration, and to my consultant colleagues in the review team. And so onto the questions that you asked: (1) Your report speaks compelling around Knowledge Management in terms of highlighting the opportunities for case studies so that stakeholders may get a more vivid feel of what “success looks like” Is there an example of such a ‘case study’ from the TAU implementation of the Development Partner programme which shows the elements of success that you identify elsewhere in the report: namely innovation, catalytic potential, deep capacity development, strong alignment with South African priorities in line with the Paris Declaration and Accra Accord (4) In your focus group discussions with the TAU, you encouraged them to overcome the linear nature of the log frame project management tool by “telling their stories of successes and learning”. page 19 Enabling change for development
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