Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Result Chains

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The impacts of the energy projects implemented under Energising Development generate changes in the areas where the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are set (see table 1). 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.

Importance of Energy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals

Energy is essential to achieving sustainable development and poverty reduction goals. It affects all aspects of development -- social, economic, and environmental -- including livelihoods, access to water, agricultural productivity, health, population levels, education, and gender-related issues.
Some two billion people have no access to modern energy services. The challenge lies in finding ways to reconcile this necessity and demand for energy with its impact on the natural resource base in order to ensure that sustainable development goals are realized.
The MDGs, a critical set of objectives to achieving sustainability, cannot be met without major improvement in the quality and quantity of energy services in developing countries.
Increasing access to modern energy services requires integrated development of enabling policy frameworks, development of local capacities, investment in infrastructure, development and/or adaptation of technologies and provision of knowledge-based advisory services.
The emerging concurrence on the role of energy in sustainable development consists of three key points:

  • Energy services are an essential input to economic development and social progress, notably to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Table 1 below summarises the linkages between energy and the multiple aspects of development.  
  • Provision of energy services to poor populations in many developing countries under current economic conditions is not attractive to market actors. Priming markets through development and support for businesses is necessary to deliver improved quantity and quality of energy services.
  • Governments and public authorities must act dynamically to create the conditions that will allow greatly expanded access to energy services. Public action in all forms - investment, regulatory action, ODA is absolutely necessary.


Sustainable, affordable energy services are essential to attain all of the MDGs, in particular poverty reduction, improved health, gender equality and sustainable management of natural resources[1].

Table 1: Importance of Energy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Development Goal
 Role of energy
1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
  • Halve, between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day
  • Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
  • Use of commercial fuels and improved cook stoves can increase agricultural productivity and food security. 95% of all food requires cooking in order to be eaten.
  • Without access to energy services, people must spend a great deal of time or a substantial part of their income and physical energy on basic subsistence activities rather than on earning money. Any improvement in the quality of the energy and the efficiency of the services, directly and structurally contributes to poverty eradication by saving money and increasing available time for other (economic) activities.
  • At the local and national levels, a reliable energy supply is essential to industrial activities, transportation, commerce, micro-enterprises and agriculture outputs and thus to economic stability and growth, jobs and improved living standards.
2) Achieve universal primary education
  • Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
  • Electric lighting increases the number of studying hours, while electricity supply in schools enables the use of educational media and communications including ICT.
  • Motive power and energy services can boost the productivity of adult labour to substitute for child labour: many children, especially girls, do not attend primary schools in order to carry wood and water to meet family subsistence needs.
  • Finally access to energy helps attract teachers to remote communities by improving rural living standards.
3) Promote gender equality and empower women
  • Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015
  • Motive power frees women and girls from hours of physical work such as food grinding and threshing. Modern cooking fuels save them from spending hours carrying large loads of fuel woods. This, and electric lighting, increases time and energy available for studying and reading and the possibilities to develop productive activities.
  • Public lighting adds to security and availability of radio and TV increases the access to gender related information.
4) Reduce child mortality
  • Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
  • Lack of energy correlates closely with inadequate health care. Modern fuels and electricity help reduce malnutrition-related mortality by boosting food production and household incomes. They also help reduce waterborne diseases by powering equipment for pumping, boiling and treating of water. Using modern biomass fuels and improved stoves reduces harmful indoor air smoke and the risk of respiratory disease. Access to modern energy is critical for keeping food and water.
  • Energy is a key component of a functioning health care system. It enables clinics to refrigerate vaccines, operate and sterilize medical equipment.
  • Energy allows the use of modern tools of mass communication such as TVs and radios needed to fight the spread of preventable diseases.
  • Access to electricity helps attract and retain health and social workers.
5) Improve maternal health
  • Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
  • Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
  • Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
7) Ensure environmental sustainability
  • Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
  • Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation
  • By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
  • Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are major contributors of urban air pollution, acidification of land and water, and the unpredictable effects of climate change. The use of fuelwood and charcoal can be unsustainable when it leads to land degradation from fuelwood gathering and to indoor air pollution from biomass combustion. Further effects might be local particulates, acid rain and global warming. Environmental damage can be mitigated by increasing energy efficiency, introducing modern technologies for energy production and use, substituting cleaner fuels for polluting fuels, and introducing renewable energy.
8) Develop a global partnership for development
  • The World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) called for partnerships between public entities, development agencies, civil society and the private sector to support sustainable development, including the delivery of affordable reliable and environmentally sustainable energy services.

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 project/programme to the spheres where the changes take place, the more difficult it becomes to assign causal relationships to development results. The GTZ results model (see figure 1) follows the OECD/DAC evaluation principles and deals explicitly with this well-known attribution problem by including an “attribution gap” as a core conceptual element. 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


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"

References

  1. ↑ GTZ (2007): Eastern Africa Resource Base: GTZ Online Regional Energy Resource Base: Regional and Country Specific Energy Resource Database: I - Energy Technology
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