The International Health Partnership: Monitoring Transparency and Accountability

Abstract

The primary mechanism by which the IHP+ promotes mutual accountability is through an intervention (called IHP+Results) to monitor IHP+ partners individual and collective progress in implementing the commitments set out in the IHP+ Global Compact. Results from IHP+Results monitoring in 2012 are presented here, including a description of the methodology used and reflections on how this can be strengthened going forward. A key finding is that, on current performance, Development Partners will not meet the Busan targets that have been renewed from the Paris framework for delivering more effective aid (in the health sector).

During the process of compiling IHP+Results performance reports, the IHP+Results team was initially occupied with liaising with representatives from each of the participating IHP+ signatories (36 out of 56 in 2012) to collect data. In some cases this can be fairly straightforward, in others it is very time consuming—largely depending factors that are specific to participating partners—for example, whether they work in sectors other than health, whether they have internal reporting systems in place to report progress. Once we had the data we needed, we spent a lot of time cleaning it (ensuring consistency of interpretation as far as possible, making sure it would not be rejected by our database), and then we produced an IHP+Results performance scorecard for each participating signatory. This is the ‘special sauce’ of the process. The scorecards enable to be identified issues for discussion, quickly and simply. In Nigeria, presentation of the scorecard to a senate committee on aid helped the Senate know more about how external aid was being used—and a senate fund was set up to support transparency and accountability; in Mozambique, partners decided to use some of the indicators to broaden the data available on the delivery of aid. At the fourth IHP+ country health sector team meeting in Nairobi (Dec 2012), over 200 delegates used the scorecards to cut to the chase on issues that were pressing and in need of attention. It’s the potential for enhancing accountability dialogues that makes the scorecards interesting.

Tim Shorten, IHP+Results Programme Manager