The government has developed a new 10-year framework for development in which government Ministries are required to be more results-oriented in development work rather than just do projects for the sake of doing it, a senior official said this week.
Dhara Wijetilaka, Secretary to the Ministry of Plan Implementation, told a group of women in business and politics at a workshop in Colombo on Thursday that the strategy is to ensure that money voted for development is used for the benefit of the people and that there is a positive outcome for the community from such investments.
The new, results-oriented, methodology of development is how the government will do business while ensuring that communities benefit, she said adding that, in future all Ministries have to conform to a scorecard that would evaluate progress of a project/projects and budget allocation for each Ministry would depend on the outcome of the earlier projects.
Ms Wijetilaka was speaking at a workshop titled ‘Business and Politics in Post War Sri Lanka’ organised by International Alert Sri Lanka and supported by UN Resident Coordinator, Sri Lanka and Viluthu, Centre for Human Resource Development. It was aimed at launching a dialogue between women in politics and female entrepreneurs on their roles and challenges in a post conflict context. It drew women politicians from parliament, provincial and local councils and included, ITAK MP K. Thangeswary, Western Province Opposition Leader Rosy Senanayake and Central Province Councillor Shanthini Kongahage among others.
The seminar was primarily aimed at linking women in business to women in politics to share ideas, ground-level realities, begin creating an agenda for goal congruence and as a first step towards a policy dialogue platform.
In a keynote speech which gave an insight into a refreshing side of the government, the Plan Implementation Secretary, an experienced public servant, said that politicians don’t often ascertain whether a project and its investment have provided the results that it sets out to achieve. “How often do our politicians raise these issues? Has a development project helped the village? Have the villagers benefited?”She said the Ministry, which is spearheading the ‘Managing for Development Results’ project, said it was hoped to inspire Ministries to measure outcome rather than spending, for example on a building (which gives no return to the community) or setting up a school (without teachers), or a courthouse that doesn’t properly dispense justice.
“The politicians are happy if the money is spent but isn’t measurement to assess the impact on the community more important?” she asked.
Ms Wijetilaka said under the programme, Ministries are being asked questions like “why do we exist (is there a need)” with the objective of improving focus and the quality of services. “Take the health sector for example; the ultimate objective should be improving the quality of services.”
Each Ministry will be given a scorecard where they have to explain whether set targets have been achieved and who (institution) has measured such progress. “This is a disciplined way of working in government, with a focus, with an objective,” she said, explaining that her Ministry has worked on this project with 35 of Sri Lanka’s 55 Ministries.
During the budget call for 2010 (government agencies asked to request their financial needs for next year), Ministries were asked by the Treasury to submit requests with the results (what has been achieved) framework and identify at least six indicators which measures the progress of work that has been done in the previous (2009) year. “Treasury allocation per Ministry will be based on these outcomes,” she said, adding that this part of the programme will be implemented when the 2010 budget is presented sometime next year since a Vote-on-Account has been presented (for the time being) in view of elections.
Ms Wijetilaka conceeded that the public sector culture is difficult to change but believed a change has to be made at some point. “Generally we evaluate our projects only on donor demands. Why shouldn’t we do it ourselves particularly now that there is increasingly demands for accountability from communities? The people need to know where their money is being spent,” she said. The project was started this year. |
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