Measures to improve focus on performance in Sweden's development assistance
Work is currently ongoing to improve the results-based management of Swedish development assistance. This was initiated by Minister for international development cooperation, Gunilla Carlsson, in 2006.
Ongoing efforts for evaluation and result assessment
- A new management model was approved by the Government in 2007. It is currently under implementation. Over time, the Swedish Government will take separate decisions on policies and multi-year strategies that govern both bilateral and multilateral development cooperation.
- In 2009, Sida was tasked with establishing a uniform system for results-based management, including a system for assessing development assistance and systematic risk analyses. Sida is to report on its progress by 30 September 2009.
- SADEV has been tasked with presenting a proposal for a multi-annual evaluation plan for a selection of the Government's cooperation strategies with individual countries. The proposal is to be presented by 15 May 2009. These evaluations could provide the basis for drafting new cooperation strategies.
- Sida has been tasked to focus on expected and actual performance when preparing, implementing and following up individual programmes and projects. The goals of the activities to which Sweden gives support through must be clarified so that it is possible to evaluate whether the expected results have been achieved, for each separate initiative.
- The quality of performance reporting also differs when it comes to multilateral organisations, depending on the efficiency of each organisation's system for results-based management. The Swedish government is currently carrying out assessments of relevance and effectiveness of multilateral organisations. Where there are shortfalls, Sweden is working to improve the quality and reliability of reporting done by each body.
- Evaluation of international development cooperation is to be systematic and evaluations should be of a high quality. Since evaluations of the long-term impact is difficult and often expensive, greater efforts will be made to perform evaluations together with other donors.
