International Development Committee Inquiry: The FCDO’s approach to Value for Money
Submission from MSI Reproductive Choices, January 2025
Background
MSI Reproductive Choices (MSI) is one of the world’s largest providers of sexual and reproductive health services, and a leading advocate for gender equality and reproductive rights. We work in 36 countries as a key partner to ministries of health, communities, and civil society organisations, with a focus on serving the poorest and most marginalised communities. In 2023, we reached an estimated 23.3 million clients with sexual and reproductive healthcare. For more details about our work and impact please see:
MSI and our consortium partners currently receive UK Aid to implement multi-year bilateral programmes in Afghanistan (Supporting Afghanistan’s Basic Services), Pakistan (Delivering Accelerated Family Planning in Pakistan) and Tanzania (Scaling up Family Planning). We lead the WISH2 Lot 1 consortium (Women’s Integrated Sexual Health), the second round of the FCDO’s flagship SRHR programme, which will be implemented across 6 countries in West Africa from 2024 to 2029. This follows our successful implementation of the first WISH programme which ran from 2018 to 2024 delivering results and strengthening health systems across 12 countries in West and Central Africa.
MSI is proud to be a key partner in implementing and upholding the UK Government’s commitments to gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and we welcome the opportunity to contribute to this inquiry.
How does the FCDO currently define the term Value for Money? Are there any other aspects of Value for Money that the FCDO should be considering in its assessment?
Over the past decade, the FCDO has rightly prioritised value for money across all its work to ensure value for money for the UK taxpayer. FCDO’s VfM framework describes use of its funds to mean “maximising the impact of each pound spent to improve poor people’s lives” in its programmes.
The FCDO’s approach to ensuring VfM, using the ‘Es’ (economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and cost-effectiveness), is sound in principle, however in practice, rigid implementation can sometimes oversimplify complex development programming. Economy and efficiency are easily measured in quantitative terms. However, effectiveness, and equity, which are arguably the most important dimensions by which development aid should be evaluated, are subjective and harder to quantify. For example, assigning numerical values to programmes focussed on shifting social norms, achieving policy change, or strengthening health systems may not necessarily reflect the wider benefits of changes achieved. These programmes are complex, and require nuance and flexibility in their reporting, particularly in the shorter to medium term.
Challenges in assessing VfM in sustainability and systems-change programmes: Systemic and sustainable change are foundational to achieving long term benefits for the people and communities that ODA supports. Benefits and impacts may be variable, subject to changing external contexts, and might only be able to be assessed over longer periods of time beyond a one-year funding cycle. Progress is rarely straightforward or linear and milestones often need to be adjusted as programmes evolve.
Programming which focuses on broader sustainable change is often implemented in partnership with other stakeholders. Individual contributions might be small and harder to measure, but are impactful, nonetheless. Similarly, programmes that produce ‘global goods’, for example training materials, research reports, or published articles, can be harder to measure in terms of VfM but can have significant impact on strengthening the global evidence base, and improving practice across sectors and geographies.
Challenges in assessing VfM in complex sectors or settings: The rigid application of VfM principles can create a mismatch between FCDO reporting expectations and the realities of delivering complex, context-sensitive programming, especially in fragile or low-resource settings. In practice, contexts change, crises hit, and programmes need to be adaptable to remain relevant and to continue to meet needs and overall goals. At times, having overly prescriptive, pre-defined targets and measures for applying VfM can be unhelpful to all parties involved.
In its assessment of VfM, we would recommend that the FCDO consider:
- Taking a more flexible and pragmatic approach to measuring VfM - for example not applying all the Es in every intervention every quarter; allowing partners to adjust VfM measures as contexts and programmes evolve through dialogue between FCDO and Implementing Partner technical experts; and recognising that contributing to systemic change is harder to quantify and requires more process milestones and indicators.
- Ensure VfM is not achieved at the expense of equity - programming that focusses on leaving no-one behind and reaching the most marginalised communities often costs more. Reducing costs to reach higher numerical targets of beneficiaries should not happen at the expense of equity based, high-quality interventions. Supporting change for marginalised communities, such as inclusion of healthcare for people with disabilities, requires approaches to be sufficiently resourced.
- Applying a ‘value for who’ lens for some programmes - for example those that meet basic needs, save lives, improve social norms, and strengthen policy environments. Using qualitative information, reports, or anecdotal evidence instead of numerical targets can sometimes tell us more about the impact made.
- Ensure proportionate VfM frameworks and measures - these should be based on factors such as level of investment, the capacity and resources of partners and the time and money needed to plan, monitor, and report. Complex VfM frameworks or measures can be inefficient if they are time-consuming and resource intensive to develop and implement.
How effective is the FCDO at monitoring the delivery and outputs of its programming to ensure its achieving Value for Money? Is there a cohesive approach across the merged FCDO?
There is not a cohesive approach to monitoring delivery and outputs to ensure VfM is achieved across FCDO programming. For example, there is often different expertise or experience across teams supporting programmes with technical themes or sector-specific measures, such as health, and differing approaches used. Requests for indicators that may not suit specific types of technical programming can lead to additional work for implementing partner teams, including explaining why some types of analysis or data are not available or useful.
VfM approaches that encourage one organisation to claim attribution for a specific result that has been achieved in collaboration can also lead to unnecessary competition and undermine partnerships.
To ensure effective monitoring of VfM in its programming, we recommend the FCDO consider clarifying with all parties what the FCDO seeks to monitor or understand in relation to VfM. If this is discussed and clarified at the beginning or even ahead of the programme, ideally with an FCDO-drafted VfM Framework, it would allow for mutual understanding, agreement, for relevant mechanisms to be established and appropriate resources to be invested. Related VfM learnings from implementation of the WISH programme include:
- Create a standardised VfM framework with indicators comparable between partners.
- Establish VfM learning questions from the programme start. This can help ensure appropriate mechanisms are in place to capture relevant data or information.
- Recognise the diversity of data and systems of consortium partners.
- Evaluate how effective reporting frequency is in supporting timely, evidence-based decision making. For example, some indicators are best measured quarterly, some annually.
- Make use of routine data where possible to support VfM analysis.
- Ensure sufficient time is allocated for decision-makers to look at the data and reflect on an ongoing basis on the impact of different interventions.
How could the FCDO improve its oversight mechanisms to ensure VfM of its ODA budget?
FCDO could improve its oversight mechanisms to ensure VfM in its decisions about funding periods and clarity in its approaches at all stages. Providing longer-term, secure funding streams where possible supports all parties to create sustained change and greater impact. FCDO VfM frameworks, resourcing and mechanisms should be more strategic and simplified. This could strengthen the practical application of VfM principles and generate easily accessible information.
With regards to localisation, we welcome FCDO’s expressed support for civil society in The White Paper of November 2023 (‘International development in a contested world: ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change’), particularly the acknowledgement of the importance of the role of civil society. We recognise that the FCDO has been a leader and supporter of civil society inclusion in development and humanitarian programmes. Localisation is invaluable in supporting ‘leave no-one behind’ priorities. It can contribute much to the equity ‘E’ of FCDO’s VfM approach, as well as being key to fostering sustainable change. Proportionate levels of VfM modelling, measuring, and reporting requirements can facilitate localisation and better support all sizes of organisation and funding levels. While we understand changes are being made, processes for national or smaller NGOs to access or learn about FCDO funding can be opaque. Transparent and more accessible routes, including clarity on VfM requirements, could support better access to FCDO funds for smaller organisations.
Does the FCDO’s funding model impact the cost effectiveness of its aid budget?
To ensure lasting and meaningful change, short term or inconsistent decision-making around funding can reduce the impact and sustainability of programmes. Budget cuts in recent years, sometimes applied midway through programmes and at short notice, have led to loss of value for money and posed risks to communities, partners, and suppliers. Applying a more strategic, do-no-harm lens when making budgetary decisions could reduce potential loss of VfM. Short term funding is essential and useful in some cases to support consistency and reliability, staff retention, and longer-term impact. However, funding periods are often more efficient when they are for longer periods of time.