The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Lab in Mexico is part of a global effort to inject innovation into the social development sector, and to accelerate the way we learn to solve the development challenges in an inclusive and sustainable manner. Meeting these challenges relies, to a large extent, on the ability of governments to effectively and efficiently execute the public budget. In this blog we tell you how we started working with the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP) to find ways to enhance learning and trigger improvements to government actions, based on the experience and interaction of people who implement public programs with the Performance Evaluation System for Results-Based Budgeting (PES-RBB). 

What are Results-Based Budgeting and the Performance Evaluation System?

The Performance Evaluation System (PES) refers to the different ways the government has to know if the programs it funds achieve the objectives for which they were created; from the external evaluations carried out by agencies and autonomous organizations such as CONEVAL, to the goals and indicators that the programs themselves define to evaluate their performance. You can learn more about PES here.

Results-based budgeting (RBB) refers to the process of integrating everything into decision-making. The idea is that the PES serves to verify and monitor the fulfillment of objectives and goals, based on indicators that allow knowing the results of the application of resources, the social impact of the programs, and identify the efficiency, economy, effectiveness and quality in the Federal Public Administration (APF in Spanish). The objective of RBB is that all this is taken into account by the representatives when deciding on the allocation of the budget.

A first opportunity for the Lab to test its methodology

UNDP and the Performance Evaluation Unit of the SHCP (PEU-SHCP) have an open line of collaboration to explore ways to improve the PES-RBB, its structure, processes, the information it generates, its usability, and any element that helps to make it more relevant to better serve its purpose. The aim is to ensure that the government delivers better public goods and services, improves the quality of expenditure, and promotes accountability and transparency.

The Lab was invited to participate in these discussions. A complex element to be addressed during the process was identified there: How does the human dimension affect what people report and the quality of the information generated? Because, although the objectives of the PES-RBB are clearly stated in the laws and decrees that support it, those who ultimately interact are people with different motivations and incentives. It should not be taken for granted for everything to be perfectly aligned. Instead, the Lab set out to analyze the system and learn from people's experience what improvements can be proposed to increase the capacity to incorporate learning.

Who are the key actors for the cycle?

The PES is formally made up of many processes in which several units converge. Mainly the PEU-SHCP, but also other areas of the SHCP, autonomous agencies, the Ministry of Public Administration (SFP) and the Federal Audit Office (ASF), among others. For this learning cycle, we limit ourselves to analyzing the interactions that exist between the PES-BRR and the teams within each unit that are responsible for implementing programs.

Teams in government units that implement programs are our main unit of analysis. Formally, they are called Responsible Units (RU) and they are any administrative unit that is provided with a budget allocation. They are in charge of executing the budgetary programs established by the units for the fulfillment of their functions.

The PEU-SHCP has liaisons in all RUs of the federal government and, on occasion, also in state and municipal governments interested in evaluating its performance. The PEU-SHCP designs multiple monitoring and evaluation processes and tools that all RUs must follow, such as the Results Indicator Matrix (RIM). Also, training is provided, computer systems are operated to collect information, and such information is analyzed and converted into reports for decision making. 

What do we want to learn?

This is how we defined a first learning cycle around the interaction between these two groups of people and the experience that evaluating the performance of budget programs means for both parties. This, without closing us to find other relevant actors along the way to incorporate them into the analysis. The questions we set out to answer are:

• How do people in the Responsible Units experience the PEU-SHCP's evaluation of the performance of budgetary programs? What does this mean for people at different levels of responsibility?
• What kind of evidence do people at different levels of responsibility generate? What constitutes actionable learning for each person and how do they internalize it in the program?
• How can this understanding help identify areas for improvement in the PES and shed light on how the PEU-SHCP can design new mechanisms to leverage people's learning to improve programs and achieve BRR objectives?

Are you a civil servant or do you know about the topic and have you faced some of the PES processes such as the completion of the Results Indicator Matrix? You can use this channel to share with us ideas on how to make the PES more human and improve its capacity to incorporate learning. At the Accelerator Lab we are creating the world's largest and most agile learning network on sustainable development challenges.