Evidences Based Decision Making: Cases from PEO studies

1. Evidences Based Decision Making: Cases from PEO studies RATNA ANJAN JENA ADVISER, PEO Planning Commission Government of India http://planningcommission.gov.in

2. Evidence-based policy has been defined as an approach which “helps people make well informed decisions about policies, programmes and projects by putting the best available evidence at the heart of policy development and implementation”. • Sources of Evidence may come from integrated monitoring and evaluation systems, academic research, historical experience and 'good practice' information. However all the sources of information may not become evidences for using policy formulations.

3. The aim of the Government is to design and implement policies in such a manner that the general quality of life of population is improved. • Investigation of all available evidences (scientifically) are required to take effective policy decisions to achieve desired outcomes. • A systematic and rational approach is essential for analyzing available evidences to take policy decisions. • The evidences should reflect the real needs of the population; and decision, based not on these reflections may lead to faulty formulation of decisions and thus bringing ineffective outcomes.

4. Therefore ,the advantages of using evidence based policy making are as follows: • it ensures that policies address the real needs of the population. • problems which requires immediate attention can be better highlighted. • it enables sharing of information with the stake holders. • reduces government expenditure. • it ensures decisions made are consistent with our democratic and political processes. • it ensures transparency and accountability.

5. The Planning Process: • Planning in India is essentially an exercise to coordinate the basic objectives of India’s development for improving level of living of India’s vast majority of population and the desired results achieved in this direction • Five Year Plans play a crucial role in the development of Indian Economy • However, planners cannot be certain of outcomes of the development projects

6. Plan Formulation: Macro:Assessment of resources, set development goals & Objectives –overall & sectoral, sector/sub-sectoral allocation of resources. Broad strategies for realization of development goals. Specific Interventions: Projects & Programs. The implementing Ministries/Departments plan and implement.

7. Need for Evaluation: • Macroeconomic indicators reflect the strength of our planned economy but access to basic services is still lacking • Growth in economy needed to raise the incomes of the people for general improvement in their level of living • Govt. of India has over the years enlarged its functions to provide targeted benefits for a larger section of the society • These benefits and services are targeted mainly at poor and embedded in the procedures of bureaucratic apparatus • The design of Government schemes may not be appropriate and the benefits may not reach the targeted population

9. The GoI established the Programme Evaluation Organisation (PEO) in 1952 as an independent organization to undertake evaluation of selected programmes/ schemes. • PEO conducts evaluation through direct observations, sample surveys and use of social science research methods and its findings and suggestions are used in formulating various Five Year Plans. • The objective is to have quality evaluation of various programmes and to know the relevance of government funding and development intervention. • Broadly speaking, the objectives of evaluation work taken up by PEO includes objective assessment of process and impact of the development programmes, identifying the areas of success and failures at different stages of administrations and execution, analysis of reasons for success or failure, examining extension methods and people’s reactions thereto and deriving lessons for future improvement in the formulation and implementation of the new programmes/schemes

10. Evaluation Reports of PEO • PEO reports are placed in the public domain i.e. in the Planning Commission Website (http://planningcommission.gov.in) • The findings are used by the Parliament, implementing Ministries, State Governments • The major areas where evaluation studies have been conducted by PEO are i) rural development, ii) agriculture and allied sector, iii) social welfare, iv) education, v) labor and employment, and vi) health and family welfare • PEO, out of 250 final reports, has published till now 245 reports • Many evaluation study reports are in the process of finalization • The recent evaluation for the year 2012-13 are related to rural development, education and development of minority communities

11. Evidences from PEO studies & Planning • Evaluation studies of PEO has helped framing effective policies for the Five year Plans making available systematic better informed evidences to the planners. • Utilizing these evidences midcourse corrections ahs also been taken to speed up development process of the country. • Also, the evidences from evaluation studies has helped in understanding the policy environment and how its changing.

12. Evidences from the PEO study and the 12th Five Year Plan Actual Evidences 12th Five year Plan • Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Program • the gap between the Irrigation Potential Created and Utilised is substantial and growing. • State Governments are finding it difficult to finance recurring costs of irrigation. • There is financial constraints on the maintenance of assets under AIBP. Adequate funds should be allocated for timely repair and maintenance of the assets created giving high priority to the task of lining of the whole canal system and lift irrigation system to be installed on the banks of canals. • Institutional reforms such as restructuring of irrigation agencies is in need. • Close the gap between IPC and IPU by at least 10 million ha by prioritising investments in Command Area Development and Management projects. • prioritising the allocation of investible funds to ongoing Micro Medium Irrigation projects. • To improve the quality as well as amount of training to ground-level functionaries of Irrigation Departments as well as farmers, the GoI will provide each of the 14 Water and Land Management Institutes (WALMIs) a grant-in-aid of Rs.5 crore over the five-year period to strengthen their training, research and extension work. • The Twelfth Five Year Plan proposes the setting up of a National Irrigation Management Fund(NIMF) to catalyse and support demand for irrigation • management and institutional reform. • Lift irrigation schemes will be taken up for AIBP support.

13. Actual Evidences 12th Five year Plan • SarvaShikshaAbhiyan • There is a need to open more upper primary schools and develop stronger linkages of pre-primary schools with primary schools in villages in order to improve retention and reduce girl dropouts. • reforming the school curriculum , No detention policy and examinations to be replaced by continuous assessment, Transport facilities for children living in remote habitations . • Extension of NPEGEL schemes in urban clusters to schools in slums and vocational training programmes in upper primary schools to address the problem of dropouts in urban areas. • Infrastructure shortages such as lack of blackboards, drinking water, separate toilets for girls, shortage of classrooms, repair and maintenance to improve school environment. • Disbursement of funds to sub block levels to be accelerated . • The Right to Education Act to be implemented by all states. • Ensure universal access and, in keeping with letter and spirit of the RTE Act. • Improve attendance and reduce dropout rates at the elementary level to below 10 per cent and lower the percentage of Out of School Children at the elementary level to below 2 per cent in all States. • Raise the Gross Enrolment Ratio at the secondary level to over 90 per cent, at the Senior Secondary level to over 65 per cent. • Raise the overall literacy rate to over 80 per cent and reduce the gender gap in literacy to less than 10 per cent. • Provide at least one year of well-supported & resourced pre-school education in primary schools to all children, particularly those in educationally backward blocks . • Improve learning outcomes that are measured, monitored and reported independently at all levels of school education with a special focus on ensuring that all children master basic reading and numeracy skills by class 2 and skills of critical thinking, expression and problem solving by class 5.

14. Actual Evidences 12th Five year Plan • Mid-day meal scheme • scope for convergence with schemes like National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme , Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission and National Rural health Mission. • Guidelines issued by Government of India regarding the delivery of food • grains by PDS dealer to school directly should be implemented . • Steering-cum-monitoring committees should be made functional and • active at district/block levels for effective implementation, convergence • and monitoring of the scheme. • PPP mode which has been successful in Andhra Pradesh can be implemented in other states which will ensure a better delivery of service and therefore a better performance of the scheme. • MDMS will be expanded to cover pre-primary schooling in a progressive manner, private unaided schools, particularly in the SC/ST and minority-concentrated areas. • Provide leverage to encourage private participation in the scheme. funding for construction of kitchen-cum-store for proper storage of foodgrains and preparation of meal in hygienic environment is being provided. This would be implemented throughout the country and capacity building initiatives would be taken up for this. • Full convergence of the MDMS with the school health programme would be ensured during the Twelfth • Plan.

15. Actual Evidences 12th Five year Plan • National Rural Health Mission • filling of vacant positions of specialists, doctors, and staff nurses, diagnostic-facilitiesTechnicians ; strengthening of FRUs. • • AYUSH needs to be invigorated. • • Procurement and supply of drugs needs immediate attention in most of the states. • • Coordination between key village level functionaries like ASHA, AWW and ANM and involvement of VHSC can bring around effective convergence in terms of nutrition, • sanitation, etc. together with quality health services. • • Outsourcing of peripheral services like cleaning, catering services, waste management, civil construction, maintenance of buildings, and referral transport services under PPP will bring around further improvement in the quality • of health services. • A suitable mechanism be designed to incentivise an increase in State Government spending. • Financial and managerial systems will be redesigned to ensure more efficient utilisation of available resources, and to achieve better health outcomes. • Efforts would be made to find a workable way of encouraging PPP mode for gap filling human resource. • special effort will be made to expand medical education in States and massive effort will be made to recruit and train paramedical and community level health workers. • A series of prescription drugs reforms, promotion of essential, generic medicines, and making these universally available free of cost to all patients in public facilities will be a priority.

16. 12th Five year Plan Actual Evidences • Total Sanitation Campaign • The idea of using community toilets as an • effective alternative for the poorest section needs to be seriously persuaded. • Proper attention should be given to the • availability of water to the households. • The Facilities Created Must Also be Sustainable. • The Toilets should be Fine Tuned with Local and Ecological Considerations. • Village Water Sanitation Committee should be strengthened, oriented and given responsibility of managing sanitation in respective villages. • Progressively ensure provision of toilets and safe drinking water supply in all AnganwadiCenters. House Sanitatary Complexes , Separate toilets for girls in schools with requisite facilities to be promoted. • Cover AWCs running in rented premises with toilets through TSC revolving fund or enhanced rent and for covering all AWCs in govt. /community/public buildings with drinking water facilities. • Hygiene improvement under TSC to be better integrated with • other Information Education & Communication campaigns. • Training and IEC activities under TSC, NRDWP, NRHM and ICDS to be linked and coordinated, including training of Village Health Water Sanitation and Nutrition Committees.

17. 12th Five year Plan Actual Evidences • Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) • Financial allocation for Supplementary Nutrition Programme needs revision and in accordance with the raising food prices. • Vertical implementation of programmes cannot help realise with the potential benefits unless issue of convergence of interrelated services is meaningfully address. • The existing co ordination and monitoring of ICDS needs to be strengthened and revamped. • Community leaders should motivate the BPL people for sending their Children to the Anganwadi Centres instead utilizing them as child labour. • Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) • Improvement in the nutritional status in both children and adults must have high priority in any strategy for human development. • Ensuring convergence is necessary with related sectors i.e NRHM, TSC, NRWP, SSA, MGNREGA through joint planning. • The mandate for strengthening existing co-ordination mechanism is vested in the ministry of WCD with partnership with Ministry of Youth Affairs. • The abolition of all forms of child labour for effective implementation of RTE Act needs to be mandated.

18. Challanges • For having reliable and reflecting evidences we need independent and quality evaluation. Statistics from MIS or that generated from day to day administration are also vital source of evidence but they need to provide us with clear, objective, numerical data on important aspects. • The availability of statistical information does not automatically lead to good decision making, as skill and knowledge is very much required to make one to be able to access, understand, analyse and communicate statistical information. • Clear or consistentevidence may not be readily available at the time of policy making as it generally requires many different kinds of evidence.

19. Challenges • Evaluation findings(Evidences) may not be used by the implementation agency as it may be treated as a fault finding exercise. • Evaluation has a political stance as it makes implicit political statements (e.g., challenging the legitimacy of existing programs) and serves as a tool for critical inquiry. • Evaluation studies may get conducted for gaining political mileage. • Politics may influences evaluation design, process and use of findings • Under political pressure the evaluation report may get maneuvered. • Difficulties in handling sensitive information

20. Thank You