212955 Measuring results: The tension between tracking funds and tracking impact

Monday, November 9, 2009: 3:20 PM

Carol Dabbs, MPH , Office of the Director for U.S. Foreign Assistance, Department of State, Washington, DC
In March 2005, the U.S. along with over 100 developing countries and donor institutions endorsed the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and the U.S. Government as a whole strongly supports its implementation. The Paris Declaration encourages locally-developed action plans and coordinating processes based on broader consultation with stakeholders and franker developing country-donor partnership, with a view to improving aid effectiveness and achieving better development results.

The U.S. supports all 54 commitments in the declaration.

The U.S. strongly endorses the principle of mutual accountability which is reflected in the increasing emphasis on monitoring and evaluation of health programs funded by the USG and the results thereof.

The presentation will discuss the approaches that the USG has taken to implementing the principle of accountability in its foreign assistance programming. This will include an examination of the variety of levels of indicators and analyses that are used by the USG for health programming, ranging from measurements of the immediate outputs of funds provided to changes in health status which result from USG inputs combined with those from other sources, such as the host country, other bilateral and multilateral donors, and NGOs both domestic and international.

Learning Objectives:
• Identify sample indicators at the output, outcome, and results levels for health assistance programs. • Describe the relationship between indicator levels and accountability for development assistance results.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have 30+ years experience working with USAID on public health programming, monitoring, and budgeting.
Any relevant financial relationships? Yes

Name of Organization Clinical/Research Area Type of relationship
State Dept. USAID Employment (includes retainer)

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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