Donor Agency RBM, Evaluation and Planning websites

The donor agencies' websites vary in quality, and they do not always implement their own results-based management guidelines, but if you are working with them, it is wise to know how the different agencies, at least in theory, approach results-based management.  The available RBM material includes:

Multilateral agency Results-Based Management

• UNIFEM's RBM guide -- one of the easiest of the donor agency materials to understand. While UNIFEM is gone, the guide remains on SCRIBD.  [See review]
  

• The UNDP Handbook on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Development Results. [See discussion]

• The United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services' online guide to Programme Performance Assessment in Results-based Management is out of date in terms of UN RBM terminology, but it is still available. [See review]

• The ILO draft RBM Guide [See discussion]

• The United Nations Evaluation Group's paper on The Role of Evaluation in Results Based Management.

• The United Nations Group Joint Inspection Unit's report on Implementation of Results-Based Management in United Nations Organizations.

• UNESCO's internal oversight portal, particularly the "evaluation reports"

• The Asian Development Bank's Introduction to Results Management.
• Kusek and Risk's World Bank report - "Ten Steps to a Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation System" [available in English, French, Spanish and Vietnamese].

• Several papers on indicator development for democratic governance, human-rights based programming, local governance and public administration reform among others at the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre's Governance Assessment Portal.

• Glen Farrell's Handbook on Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation at the Commonwealth of Learning.
  

• UNICEF's "Understanding Results-Based Programme Planning and Management."

• Several SIDA publications on the theory, uses and abuses of the Logical Framework Approach. [See reviews and discussion]

• The AusAid Ausguide 3.3: The Logical Framework Approach [See discussion]

• A DANIDA Guide to the Logical Framework Approach , which might be outdated [See discussion]

• The DFID How-To Note: Guidance on Using the Revised LFA (available from MaNDE) [See discussion]

• The EuropeAid Results Oriented Monitoring Handbook  [See discussion]
  

• RBM Tools at CIDA:  How-To Guide. [See discussion]

• The old, but still practical CIDA guide to planning large projects. [See review]

• The December 2000 CIDA RBM Handbook on Developing Results Chains: The Basics of RBM as Applied to 100 Project Examples, which while out of date (at least in terms of CIDA's current terminology),  still has many useful examples on results chains and indicators.  It is no longer, apparently, available from the CIDA website, but you can find it at Mosaic International's site, along with other useful material.

• The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation's website has over 1300 documents, including handbooks, guides, lessons learned reviews, policy papers and evaluations of projects, and partners, and a user-friendly search function. [See review]

Useful Results-Based Management, Evaluation and Planning Tools

These websites have a variety of tools, opinions and news of potential relevance to people wanting to improve RBM skills:

• The Project Management for Development Organizations Open Library website, which archives a lot of useful material, when aid agencies, for example, remove the material from their own sites.  If you can't find one of the links here, try the PM4DEV site.

• The University of Wisconsin's online self-study module: Enhancing Program Performance with Logic Models.  [See review]

• The Overseas Development Institute's Communications Toolkit page.

• Rick Davies' Monitoring and Evaluation News[See review]

• Philip Dearden's guide to Multi-Agency Planning Using the Logical Framework Approach.  [See review]

• E. T. Jackson's discussion of potential compatibility of Results-Based Management and participatory evaluation.
  

• The International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC), which has several easy to understand documents, including The Use and Abuse of the Logical Framework Approach. [See review]

• An Indicator Development Guide excerpted from Results-Based Management training material by Greg Armstrong.

• Mark Schacter's writing on RBM and policy. [See review]

• The Auditor-General of Canada's Implementing Results-Based Management: Lessons from the Literature [See review]

• The Results-Based Management Website Review Blog

• John Mayne's 2005 update on Challenges and Lessons in Results-Based Management. [This disappears from the ADB website, from time to time, and if you can't find it, try the Auditor-General of Canada's Implementing Results-Based Management, listed above.]

Results-Relevant Audio Podcasts

Audio Podcasts available for listening, that are relevant to results-based management and indicator development:

• All about indicators: More or Less: Behind the Stats, from the BBC [See review].

• Counterpoint, from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation [See review]

• Radiolab, from National Public Radio [See review]

Current Indicators

Indicator discussions in the news:

• The Guardian Data Store  [See review] 
  
• The Bad Science Blog
• The Fact Check Blog
• The Numbers Guy - on the Wall Street Journal
• Creative indicator presentations: The Gapminder Institute
• Straight Statistics - Journalists and statisticians exposing bad practice in indicator interpretation.

Indicator Data Visualizations

• The Guardian Datablog --  "Facts are Sacred" [See review]
• The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation data visualization tools -- "innovative ways to visualize complex topics" 
• Chartporn -- "An addictive collection of charts, maps graphs and interactive data visualization toys..."
• Dataviz Gallery of Data Visualization -- "The Best and Worst of Statistical Graphics"

 Most Recent Reviews of RBM guides and tools from Greg Armstrong's RBM websites review blog