Insistence on measurable results hinders actual development while also frustrating the heck out of me. In our work in
When an organization like ours – relatively small, relatively small budget and “on the ground” –
writes a project proposal to one of the above-mentioned institutions, it must always include particular “Objectives” and “Indicators” and note the way that these results will be verified. Invariably the methods of verification are paperwork: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports both narrative and financial, plus internal and external evaluations. The external evaluations are always done by an outside contractor who makes an obscene amount of money to read everyone else’s reports and possibly make a site visit and do an interview or two.
Once a project is approved those of us who do tangible work to try to make the project actually happen, while those who are assigned to the project at the funding institution begin requesting paperwork from us. These folks are usually called “specialists” and their job is essentially pushing paper and covering their own behinds and their bosses’ to make sure that, on the off chance someone further up the bureaucratic food chain actually reads the reports, they have dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s.
So much focus on paperwork causes the actual project to suffer – it boils down to no 
one caring whether or not you actually accomplish anything, but only that you wrote it all down correctly and turned it in on time. For example, we recently had a functionary tell us that we couldn’t spend money on what we most needed because – and I could not make this up if I tried – a previous functionary had not “put a check mark next to number 20 on page 6” which would have indicated a future intention to spend the money in that manner.
Amid this sea of reports, what gets lost is humanity. Where do people fit in to measurable results? They stop being Martha and Diana and Pablo with faces and names and children and instead become “project beneficiaries.” And the push for measurable results means that those of us who serve as the conduit trying to get institutional money to the places it’s most needed wind up doing what the people with the money “require” of us instead of what the poor really need. That’s not right.
People who are a lot smarter than me – and there are a gracious plenty of those – have given this subject a lot more thought (and a lot fewer sarcastic remarks) than me and have come to the same conclusion: measurable results in fact impede real results. Nicaraguan economist Carlos Pacheco – also intimately familiar with the dark world of results-based projects – says that development should be process-based, as opposed to results-based. He says that in fact we should not talk about “Projects” – which arbitrarily end whether or not there is a need to continue the work – but rather we should talk about Process. And, as he points out, processes 
are very hard to measure, which funding institutions hate, but they ought to just get over that if what they want is to contribute to sustainable development. Some of the best advances happen internally, and that’s simply something that can’t be measured.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of pull in these institutions to convince them that they’re headed the wrong way. Fortunately, the CDCA has a lot of supporters who don’t need measurable results – individuals, groups and organizations that simply send in donations saying “Y’all do great work, use this to keep it up!” On this year’s IRS tax form that we have to fill out as a non-profit, our organization is 99.61% publicly supported…that is one number for which I feel immeasurably grateful. – Becca
If you’d like to become one of those supporters who help us do more work and fewer reports, go to http://www.jhc-cdca.org/credit.html to donate online or send a donation by check.
