In recent years, the international development community has increased its focus on measuring and improving results. Donors and developing countries alike want to know that aid is being used as effectively as possible, and they want to be able to measure results. The aim is to ensure that development work leads to tangible and sustained improvements in people’s lives.

This aim is implicit in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were adopted by 189 countries in 2000, and the Monterrey Consensus of 2002, which stressed the need to mobilize financial resources more efficiently. The Joint Marrakesh Memorandum in 2004 signalled a renewed emphasis on making aid effective. This was reinforced by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness of 2005. In 2008, government ministers from developing and donor countries, along with heads of multi-lateral and bi-lateral development institutions, endorsed the Accra Agenda for Action to accelerate and deepen implementation of the Paris Declaration.

Today, IFAD is working in many ways to improve its development effectiveness.

The Strategic Framework 2011 to 2015 charts IFAD’s new directions and new ways of working in response to the needs of poor rural people in a rapidly changing world. It reflects our response to the evolving international development agenda and the need for increased and more effective investment in reducing rural poverty and hunger. Its purpose is to ensure that IFAD’s operations have the greatest possible impact for poor rural people.

In 2005, IFAD’s Executive Board approved an Action Plan for 2007 to 2009 to make IFAD’s work more effective, efficient and relevant. The Action Plan calls for comprehensive improvements in the way we work and interact with clients and partners.

As part of our efforts to meet our Action Plan targets by 2009, IFAD has adopted the Managing for Development Results (MfDR) approach.  MfDR is a management strategy that provides a framework for assessing performance, learning from experiences and using resources more efficiently. It encourages organizations to ask three fundamental questions:

• What results do we wish to achieve?
• What will we do to reach these results?
• How will we know whether we have achieved them?

IFAD is also participating in the One UN reform efforts that call upon UN agencies to “deliver as one, in true partnership and serving the needs of all countries.” IFAD has strengthened its ties to the other Rome-based UN agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). Together, we are exploring ways to expand and deepen our collaboration at the global, regional and country level.  A joint exercise between the agencies is identifying gaps and opportunities for greater collaboration.

At the country level, “delivering as one” means that the different UN bodies must work as a single team. Today, IFAD is participating in the One UN pilot initiative in eight countries.