GPE’s Approach to Value for Money: A Case for Complexity and Sustainability

• In Event: What does value for money mean when it comes to educating a child?

Proposal

Traditional value for money models conceptualize value for money in a linear form, as a value chain, omitting layers of complexity inherent in working within such systems as education. Education projects are rooted in political contexts, operate within institutional constraints, and require support and good will of participants and beneficiaries. All of these factors play central role in achieving outcomes we are looking for. In addition, the traditional model does not accommodate for differences between implementing donor-supported initiatives and sustainment of outcomes by national governments or other local stakeholders. If we believe that the fundamental objective of development is to eliminate the need for it, then the value for money models need to be adjusted to accommodate longer-term outcomes and emphasis on local ownership.

GPE’s approach to value for money is rooted in its Theory of Change, GPE 2020 Strategy, and Results framework. The organizational complexity of GPE that operates at many levels (the country level, the grant level, the program level) complicates efforts to operationalize its approach to assessing value for money. Some policies and procedures geared towards VfM are already in place, like the Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy. However, most VfM-related policies and procedures are in their infancy stage. GPE is working on various initiatives to improve VfM policies and procedures, develop necessary metrics and tools, and train staff. Centralizing and standardizing VfM approach is also a challenge, since there is no clear consensus on what constitutes “value”: technical effectiveness, compliance and transparency, or long-term sustainment or results. From a technical value lens, GPE offers value to donor countries, specific projects/programs, and within the education domain. From a compliance lens, GPE offers value by ensuring that money is not being over-spent, money is going where it should be, and resulting impacts and outcomes for money spent are articulated and learned from. From the sustainment value lens, sustainability is only directly tied to education financing and indirectly tied to numerous indicators. Being more explicit about the span and scope of sustainability indicators and how they connect to represent value is an area for improvement.

GPE’s value for money approach attempts to balance the traditional four “E” model with the emphasis on complexity and sustainability of development work in the education sector. During the presentation, we will describe our approach to assessing overall value for money of investments in achieving GPE goals, as well as present specific methods for operationalizing how resources are allocated, managed, monitored, evaluated, reported on and learned from, with the goal of optimizing intended outcomes and impacts in a robust manner that works in unison with our partners as we strive for advances in learning outcomes and equity.

Author

• Kouassi Soman, GPE