Group Expectations Included:

1. Group Expectations Included: • Learning from experience of others • Ways to operationalize flexibility • Enhance commonality of approaches • Institutionalize participatory M & E • Learn more about results-based management • Help IFAD develop a greater impact orientation • Identify ways to monitor capacity building and strengthen institutional analysis • Operational recommendations should emanate from the workshop • Have fun

2. Definition of Impact • Super Goal Level relates to achievement of the DAC development targets • Goal Level relates to improvements in well being • Purpose Level relates to sustainable changes in behaviour • Related Issues include: • Enabling governments and other local institutions to focus more on impact • Major gaps between institutional and global DAC targets and need to bridge them (but some debate about operational relevance) • Who do we work with at each level? • Purpose level impact related to capacity strengthening needs greater attention

3. Focus on Local Institutions (Including Grassroots Organizations) • Need to focus on assisting local institutions (including grassroots organizations) to collect information, manage projects/programmes to ensure local ownership towards impact achievement • Investing in creating capacity and empowerment • Accountability and transparency (including mechanisms for beneficiaries to hold service providers accountable) • Subsidiarity (decisions taken at appropriate level) • Accent on development of sustainable institutions • Improve physical and managerial working conditions • Introduction of more “user-friendly” procedures and processes

4. Key Areas for Enhancing Partnership • Working together to strengthen planning and management processes at all levels (sectoral, regional, district, village, etc.) • Joint multi-donor/national partner strategic/policy approaches, diagnostic studies, and evaluations (upstream collaboration essential) • Common parameters and indicators or impact measurement at country level • Agreement on common approaches and management/communication tools to make the work of local stakeholders (and donors?) easier • Need to encourage institutional cultures towards reflection, openness, and risk-taking • Share learning about partnering

5. Facilitating Learning for Impact Achievement • Projects as learning processes for a variety of stakeholders and the need to systematize learning (as opposed to “accidental” learning) • Need for different learning strategies and tools or different categories of stakeholders • Need to capture project-level learning for purposes of replicability of successes and avoiding mistakes • BUT need to understand the context of lessons learned and adapt appropriately to other contexts • Need to recognize/respect the value of local knowledge and build upon it • As a central way for individual donor agencies to contribute to attainment of the Year 2015 international development targets • Need for imaginative ways to capture knowledge and use tools

6. Examples of Success Stories (in countries) • Morrocco (with GTZ assistance) Participatory planning and management in a national park project • Improvement of local managerial conditions of project staff and beneficiaries • Empowerment for decision-making (led to strong local ownership) • “Samasari” in Bangladesh (OXFAM) • Imaginative use of monitoring tools and processes • Development of user-friendly processes • Good-natured competition between communities for impact monitoring • Micro-finance in Bangladesh for “asset-less” people • Empowerment of small groups through decentralized decision-making • Institutionalization of sustainable practices • Nigeria Agricultural Ministry Coordination Unit • Efforts being made to coordinate donor investment approaches • Facilitating partnership efforts

7. Success Stories (in donor agencies) • DFID top management publishes draft documents on intra-net on organizational changes • Promotion of transparency and openness • A donor agency “practicing what it preaches” • IFAD attitude survey • Intended to improve upward accountability and staff working conditions • Stimulation of institutional reflection • IADB rewards or country portfolio improvement • Performance-based rewards and recognition • Quick, timely incentives to those actually responsible or the improvements

8. Organizations Need to Change to Enhance Impact Achievement • In order to change, they will need different incentive systems • All agency processes and procedures need to be reviewed (streamlined) in light of their contribution to impact enhancement • Need for impact-oriented tools and approaches • Look beyond project level to higher levels and adjust incentives accordingly • Need for incentives to promote partnership • Need for more downward and upward accountability • Need to encourage institutional cultures towards reflection, openness, and risk-taking • Organizations and individuals need to focus on results