Setting Priorities and Achieving Results: Strategic Budgeting from a Regional Perspective

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Setting Priorities and Achieving Results
Strategic Budgeting from a Regional Perspective

• Programme Officers, Manila,
• September-October 2002

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Goal for this session

• Review Strategic Budgeting concepts and how they
  apply at the ILO-wide and regionally-specific
  levels
• Review the Unit Objectives database and its use
  in reporting (as a precursor to IRIS)
• Discuss the links between programme level
  objective setting and good project identification
  and design

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Agenda

• Strategic budgeting review
• Some concepts to use this week
• What we are learning from the Unit Objectives
  Database
• Reminders.

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What does Strategic Planning and Budgeting mean
in the region?

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Points of departure

• You all attended the Strategic Budgeting course
• Focus of this week is on TC management skills
  Project management
• Logical and planning processes the same at the
  large scale of a programme and the smaller scale
  of an individual project
• Links between individual projects and larger
  frameworks of results, of accountabilities

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A quick review of some strategic budgeting
concepts in the ILO Regular Budget (PB)

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Reminder Planning budgeting in the regular
budget

• Programme and Budget document before 2000-01 was
  a list of, and authority for, ACTIVITIES.

• This didnt tell Governing Body, or the Office,
  what change had occurred in the world as a RESULT
  of our actions.

CONCLUSION Managing by activities was neither
strategic nor cost/time effective
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Heres what we are going to achieve and how we
intend to do it.
Activities RB and TC projects The projects,
publications, research, advice and other
activities undertaken by staff to achieve the
planned results.
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Focusing on results means thinking about
cause-and-effect relationships
Higher-level Results

• Better access to basic rights in the workplace

Immediate Results

• Improved administration of labour law

Planned Activities

• Training program for Ministry of Labour employees
  on labour law administration

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Example Objective, Indicators and Targets in
ACT/EMP
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Multi-year Planning and Reporting Cycles

• ILO-wide
• Strategic Framework 4 year cycle
• Programme and Budget Biennial cycle
• Implementation Reporting Annual Cycle (mid-term
  and report on the biennium)
• Programme Evaluations 2 per year
• Specific to the region
• Country briefs
• Work plans
• Project proposals and donor reports
• More!

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ILOs Strategic Objectives

• Set the priorities and focus of the ILO as a
  whole.
• Define what the organisation is trying to achieve
  globally
• Affirmed in PB, therefore legitimate use of
  funds
• Individual activities must contribute to
  achieving these

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Regional priorities

• Set the particular context within which the ILOs
  Strategic objectives are achieved
• Reflect the situation of particular countries
  unique or common.
• Define the targets for the Strategic Objectives
  What, who, where changes?

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End of quick review but keep these concepts in
mind!
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An opening idea five stages common to all
design/development processes

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???

• Need Identification
• Logical/Analytical process
• Concept
• Proposal
• Plan

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Four concepts
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Some key concepts

• Results
• Strategies
• Budgets
• Accountabilities

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Results
Higher-level Results

• So that?

Immediate Results

• So that what happens?

Give some examples!
Planned Activities

• Do what?

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Results may be easier to define if you understand
the problemProblem trees
Problem

• Are the inverse of the objective tree.
• A way to analyze the nature of problems, and the
  many causes, whether they are specific situations
  directly related to the problem, or more
  distant.
• A fresh look at your assumptions.
• A way to build consensus for decisions and for
  partnerships.

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Strategies
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A strategy is a real, long term plan of action,
specific to circumstances and place, based on
good knowledge, that connects disparate actions
and event to achieve an overall objective

• Examples of strategies?
• Is one project a strategy? Why yes, why no?
• How do strategies relate to choices of action?

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Budget
BENEFIT
COST

• Value is determined in relation to an
  expenditures ability to get to the RESULT -
  part of your STRATEGY - hence STRATEGIC
  BUDGETING

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Accountability

• Accounting for what? (results, strategy,
  budget)
• Defining responsibility for what, to whom?
• Articulating dependencies, assumptions,
  reciprocal expectations
• Discuss What does this mean in practice?

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In a Regional Context
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Area for RB programming



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Discussion

• Should ILO action be constrained in this way?
• How can the ILO do this better?
• Looking at what it actually means in the Unit
  Objectives Database

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What we can learn from the Unit Objectives
Database and what we cant
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Some closing reminders
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Whats a Unit Objective?

• A concept in development but its the link
  between the strategic framework and actual
  projects.
• NOT What needs to be done?
• But
• What needs to be done, for whom, by ILO, now?

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Logical associations among objectives within an
objective tree

• OBJECTIVE STATEMENT
• Written as an observable end-result
• Measurable (by an indicator)
• Realistic and objectively verifiable

Any critical assumptions ?
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Unit Strategies

• The logical steps required to achieve a Unit
  Objective, using an Objective Tree or other
  logical sequencing technique.

• NOT
• A list of tasks
• Built up out of existing or favourite activities

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A good project must define

• WHO is affected (target group)
• WHERE (what country)
• WHAT result (measurable change)
• A good project for the ILO must meet these
  criteria, AND
• Contribute to achieving the ILO strategic
  Objectives
• Within the framework of regional priorities

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Monitoring Evaluating a strategy
Monitor
Evaluate