Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Result Chains

Overview

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are set (see table importance of energy for achieving the MDGs). Impact monitoring makes changes apparent. Such changes are the result of a combined influence of the society's own internal mechanisms of development, and external political, economic and environmental factors, one of which may be a development programme or project. It is quite difficult to tell which factor caused which change, and it is hardly possible to isolate the project's impact from any other influence. Still, impact monitoring is important, because it is a process of learning about relationships. To be more effective and realistic, decisions and project activities should be reviewed from time to time and be adapted to the changing situation. Furthermore, by conducting impact assessments on a regular basis, the mid to long-term sustainability of results and impacts can be monitored.

Result Chains

The actual difficulties of assessing development results and impacts lie in the “attribution”, i.e. in the classification of a highly-aggregated development progress for individual projects. This means that the greater the distance from the individual intervention to the spheres where the changes take place, the more difficult it becomes to assign causal relationships to development results.

A results chain sets out a logical pattern of how successive and conditional inputs, activities, and outputs that an intervention can directly affect, could lead to more distant outcomes and impacts.

Figure 1: An exemplary results chain:

Result Chain

Development projects and programmes are resourced through German and partner inputs, such as materials, equipment, staff and funds. Using these inputs, the projects launch activities such as advisory services, trainings, funding, or accompanying measures (e.g. awareness and marketing campaigns). Due to these activities outputs are generated, which might occur as qualified institutions/organisations, availability of sufficient financial resources of partner organisations or supporting measures in place. These outputs are then utilised by target groups or intermediaries (use of outputs), e.g. leading to efficient processes and improved services of institutions/organisations or the use of funds for improving energy infrastructure. This use of output is further generating medium-term and long-term development results such as outcomes (e.g. improved access to electricity for rural households) and impacts (e.g. increased household income, reduced workload for women).

Up to the level of “use of outputs”, attribution is relatively easy in most cases. However, as we climb up to the levels of “outcomes” and “impacts” external factors that cannot be influenced by projects and programmes become increasingly important. The attribution gap widens up to an extent where the observed changes cannot be directly related to project outputs any more. Up to the level where a causal relationship between outputs and observed development changes can be shown, projects are entitled to claim the observed positive development changes as a “direct benefit” or “outcome”. The project or programme objective is set at this level of the result chain. Often, however, the actual reason for launching operations in a sector or country is to achieve results beyond that level, and these can usually be influenced only indirectly by the project/programme. In general, it is not possible to identify a causal relationship explaining how these “indirect benefits” came about, as too many actors are involved to clearly isolate the effect of a single intervention. Nonetheless, highly aggregated development results (for instance progress made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals) need to be kept in view. Even though comprehensive attribution is not possible, EnDev projects should provide plausible hypotheses on the project’s 'contributions' to overarching development results. The following tables show the typical impact chain for projects regarding “Energy for cooking” and “Rural Electrification”.

Impact Chain for the Project Type: Energy for Cooking

Table 2: Impact Chain for the Project type: Energy for cooking

Impact Chain	Criteria
Output	Appropriate & viable stove technologies are developed
	Stove producers are trained in technical and marketing skills
	Quality control system is developed
	Increased access to information & knowledge about cooking energy (technologies & techniques) for public
Use of output	Appropriate & viable stove technologies are applied
	Stove producers are competent and apply their technical and marketing skills
	Quality control system is implemented
	Increased awareness about cooking energy issues in households, social institutions and SMEs
Outcome (Direct benefits)	Improved sustainable access to cooking energy for households, SME and social institutions:
	More high quality stoves are produced and sold by men & women
	More people buy and use efficiently ICS
Impact (Indirect benefits)	Increased income generation for stove producers and retailers, more jobs and SMEs created
	Increased engagement & employment of women
	Biomass energy is saved leading to
	Savings: less expenses for fuel wood
	Saved time on fuel wood collection
	Improved working and living conditions
	Saved cooking and collecting time
	Less workload for women and children
	Improved indoor air quality and less respiratory and eye diseases
	Improved safety and hygene in the kitchen
	Less deforestation and land degradation and improved climate protection
Highly aggregated results	Reduction of extreme poverty
	Improved economic conditions
	Improved environmental conditions
	Improved health situation
	Improved situation of women

Impact Chain for the Project Type: Rural Electrification

Table 3: Impact Chain for the Project type: Rural Electrification

Impact Chain	Criteria
Output	Institutions / organisations are qualified
	Partner organisations have sufficient financial resources to implement pro-poor electrification programmes
	Back-up/accompanying measures are implemented
Use of output	Qualified institutions / organisations work more efficiently and offer innovative products and services
	Partner organisations use financial resources to provide facilitated access to modern energy services for households, SME, social institutions
	Long-term sustainability is ensured by the implemented back-up/accompanying measures
Outcome (Direct benefits)	Improved sustainable access to electricity for households, SME and social institutions
	The provided electricity is increasingly used for productive purposes and income generation
Impact (Indirect benefits)	Electricity for Households:
	Increased income through household production facilitated by improved working conditions
	Monetary savings through reduced energy costs
	Improved indoor air quality in households
	Improved conditions for reading / studying of school children
	Reduced workload / improved working conditions for women
	Improved information and communication facilities
	Enhanced perception of safety
	Enhanced social cohesion in the community
	Electricity for Social Infrastructure:
	Improved health services (medical infrastructure)
	Improved educational services (educational infrastructure)
	Enhanced perception of safety
	Enhanced social cohesion in the community
	Electricity for SME & Agriculture:
	Increased number / higher productivity of SME
	Development of new businesses / energy-based value chains
	Increased agricultural productivity
Highly aggregated results	Reduction of extreme poverty
	Improved economic conditions
	Improved health situation
	Improved educational situation
	Improved situation of women

Monitoring and Impact Assessment

Monitoring of output, use of output and direct benefits (outcomes) are part of the existing project monitoring; biannual each EnDev project provides a monitoring report with the no. of people provided with access to a modern form of energy (direct benefit / outcome). Monitoring the indirect benefits (impacts) and highly aggregated results (MDG level) in the impact chains should be part of a regular impact assessment. Therefore, the EnDev projects should select a set of applicable indicators to be monitored on a regular basis through case studies or surveys. If needed, the EnDev team in Eschborn will provide additional support. The following paragraphs and tables present some options for indicators. For reasons of comparison and potential further analysis of data (e.g. cost-benefit-analysis) it is highly recommendable to include certain essential indicators (marked in the tables) for every EnDev Impact-Assessment.

► Full list Indicators "What to meassure" and "How to meassure"

Further Information

• Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• UNDP: Sustainable energy
• Wikipedia: Renewable energy

References

• DFID – dfid.gov.uk- energy for the poor, pdf , August 2002
• GTZ - Guidelines for Impact Monitoring in Economic and Employment Promotion Projects with Special Reference to Poverty Reduction Impacts, March 2001; Kuby, Thomas; Vahlhaus, Martina.
• GTZ – Measuring Successes and Setbacks. How to Monitor and Evaluate Household Energy Projects. 1996.
• GTZ – Results-based Monitoring. Guidelines for Technical Cooperation Projects and Programmes, May 2004
• OECD/DAC – Glossary, pdf of Key Terms in Evaluation and Results Based Management 2002.
• UNDP - undp.org, pdf Energizing the Millennium Development Goals, August 2005
• UN Energy - paper, pdf energy challenge for achieving the Millennium Development Goals”, July 2005 worldbank.org, Energy Working Notes Energy and Poverty: Myths, Links, and Policy Issues (272k pdf). Energy Working Notes No. 4, by Jamal Saghir. May 2005.