RBME is a tool for public sector management that can help track progress and demonstrate the impact of projects and policies. It focuses on outcomes and impacts rather than just inputs and outputs. Governments are increasingly expected to show results and address questions like whether policies are achieving desired outcomes. RBME involves setting targets and monitoring indicators over time to evaluate success, identify problems, and make corrections. Both monitoring and evaluation are needed to better manage initiatives and steer them toward goals.

1. Results-Based Monitoring and
Evaluation System (RBME)
A Tool for Public Sector Management
Madhawa Waidyaratna B. Sc. (Chem.), MBA , MSc (IT), MA, MCSSL, MSLIM
Director Planning, Industrial Development Board of Ceylon

2. Overview of RBME
RBME is a powerful public management tool that can be
used to help policymakers and decision makers track
progress and demonstrate the impact of a given project,
program, or policy
There are growing pressures in developing countries to
improve performance of their public sectors

3. Overview of RBME [contd.]
Involves reform by tracking results of government or
organizational actions over time
Results-based M&E differs from traditional
implementation-focused M&E in that it moves beyond an
emphasis on inputs and outputs to a greater focus on
outcomes and impacts
New results-based approaches help to answer the “so
what” question
In other words, governments and organizations may
successfully implement programs or policies, but have
they produced the actual, intended results

4. New Challenges in Public Sector
Governments are increasingly being called upon to
demonstrate results. Stakeholders are no longer solely
interested in organizational activities and outputs; they are
now more than ever interested in actual outcomes.
Have policies, programs, and projects led to the desired
results and outcomes?
How do we know we are on the right track?
How do we know if there are problems along the way?
How can we correct them at any given point in time?
How do we measure progress?
How can we tell success from failure?

5. The Power of Measuring
If you do not measure results, you can not tell success from failure
If you can not see success, you can not reward it
If you can not reward success, you are probably rewarding failure
If you can not see success, you can not learn from it
If you can not recognize failure, you can not correct it
If you can demonstrate results, you can win public support
Adapted from Osborne & Gaebler, 1992

6. Reasons to Do Results-Based M&E
Provides crucial information about performance
Provides a view over time on the status of a
project, program or policy
Promotes credibility and public confidence by reporting
on the results of programs
Helps formulate and justify budget requests
Identifies potentially promising programs or practices

7. Reasons to Do Results-Based M&E
Focuses attention on achieving outcomes important to
the organization and its stakeholders
Provides timely, frequent information to staff
Helps establish key goals and objectives
Permits managers to identify and take action to correct
weaknesses
Supports a development agenda that is shifting towards
greater accountability for finances

8. International Initiatives
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
Accra Agenda for Action (AAA)
International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)
Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative

9. Managing for results
Use the information to improve decision making and steer
development interventions towards clearly defined goals
Traditional Management
Approach
• Focused mainly on inputs and
activities.
Results-Based Management
Approach
• Focus on the results obtained
rather than just on the inputs
used or the activities conducted

10. Critical Factors for Defining Results
Socio-economic context: Results statement should reflect
local needs and priorities
Local Capacity: Existing skills, leadership, and
management capacity will impact on what can be
implemented to achieve expected results
Resources: Level of resources will impact on what can
realistically be achieved
Timetable: Results framework must identify the results
(changes) to be achieved in the life of the program

11. Monitoring & Evaluation
Results-based monitoring is a continuous process of collecting
and analyzing information on key indicators, and comparing
actual results to expected results
Results-based evaluation is an assessment of a planned,
ongoing, or completed intervention to determine its relevance,
efficiency, effectiveness, impact, and/or sustainability
Monitoring: tracks movement of indicators towards the
achievement of specific, predetermined targets
Evaluation: takes a broader view, considering progress toward
stated goals, the logic of the initiative, and its consequences
Both are needed to better manage policies, programs, and
projects
Adapted from OECD definition

12. Doing Things Right

13. Key Types of Monitoring
Impact
Results
Results Monitoring
Outcome
Output
Implementation
Activity Implementation Monitoring
(Means and Strategies)
Input

14. Results-Based Monitoring
Goal (Impacts)
• Long-term, widespread
improvement in society
Results
Outcomes
• Intermediate effects of outputs
on clients
Outputs • Products and services produced
Implementation
Activities • Tasks personnel undertake to
transform inputs to outputs
Inputs
• Financial, human, and material
resources

15. Results-Based Monitoring
• Higher income levels of
Goal (Impacts)
entrepreneurs ; Increased
Results
global competitiveness
Outcomes
• Increased productivity;
reduction of production cost
• Number of programmes
Outputs conducted ; Number of trained
personnel
Implementation
Activities • Productivity enhancement
programmes
Inputs • Facilities, trainers, materials

16. The Essential Actions in Building
M&E System
Formulate outcomes and goals
Select outcome indicators to monitor
Gather baseline information on the current condition
Set specific targets to reach and dates for reaching them
Regularly collect data to assess whether the targets are
being met
Analyze and report the results

17. Implementation Monitoring Links
to Results Monitoring
Outcome
Target 1 Target 2 Target 3
Means and Means and Means and
Strategies Strategies Strategies
(Multi-Year (Multi-Year (Multi-Year
and Annual and Annual and Annual
Work Plans) Work Plans) Work Plans)

18. Performance Indicators
A variable that provides accurate and reliable evidence about the achievement of
a specific result
Indicators should be SMART or CREAM
Specific ; Measurable ; Attributable ; Realistic ; Targeted
Clear ; Relevant ; Economic ; Adequate ; Monitorable
What gets measured gets done
If you don’t measure results, you
can’t tell success from failure

19. Complementary Roles of
Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring Evaluation
Analyzes why intended results were or
 Clarifies program objectives
 were not achieved
Links activities and their Assesses specific causal contributions of
 resources to objectives  activities to results
Translates objectives into
 performance indicators and set
targets  Examines implementation process
Routinely collects data on
 these indicators, compares
actual results with targets  Explores unintended results
Provides lessons, highlights significant
 Reports progresstotoproblems 
and alerts them
managers accomplishment or program
potential, and offers recommendations
for improvement

20. Examples of Results Chain
Long Term Outcomes Outputs
Goal • Teachers trained
Education • Increased
student
• Increase literacy • Text Books
rates completion rates provided
Long Term Outcomes Outputs
Goal • Increased use of • Doctors hired
Health • Improved health clinics • Health workers
maternal trained
mortality

21. Translating Outcomes to Action
Activities are crucial. They are the actions you take to
manage and implement your programs, use your
resources, and deliver the services of government
But the sum of these activities may or may not mean you
have achieved your outcomes
Question is: How will you know when you have been
successful?

22. Designing Good Evaluations
Better to be approximately
correct than precisely wrong
• Paraphrased from Bertrand Russell

23. Designing, Building and Sustaining
a RBME System
Planning for
Selecting Key Improvement
Conducting a Indicators to — Selecting The Role of Using
Readiness Monitor Results Targets Evaluations Your
Assessment Outcomes Findings
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Agreeing on Baseline Data Monitoring Reporting Your Sustaining
Outcomes to on for Results Findings the
Monitor and Indicators— M&E System
Evaluate Where Are Within Your
We Today? Organization

24. Barriers to M&E
Do any of the following present barriers to building an
M&E system?
lack of an
lack of a
lack of outcome-
lack of fiscal resources champion for
political will linked strategy
the system
or experience
How do we confront these barriers?

25. In Conclusion
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but
a habit
• Aristotle
Questions? Comments? Views?