Raising The Bar

Economic development in the 21st century depends on implementation of policies, programmes and projects. That, in turn, depends on how effectively we follow-up. In South Asia, India was first to implement a government performance monitoring and evaluation system in 2009 but it seems to be lagging behind Bhutan and Bangladesh now.

- Prajapati Trivedi

AFTER participating in the international conference on ‘Government Performance Management Systems (GPMS)’ in January 2017, I can say with confidence that Bhutan is the current leader in South Asia when it comes to implementation of government-wide GPMS. Bangladesh is close on the heels of Bhutan. Before I explain the reasons for reaching this conclusion, a word about the conference.

Organised by the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) in collaboration with the Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh and the World Bank on January 22, 2017, the conference participants included government officials, members of civil society, leading academics, scholars, and policy makers from Asia and other countries.

The main presentations in the conference covered GPMS approaches in Malaysia, Bangladesh Bhutan and India – countries that are active in the region and have been part of a regional Community of Practice (CoP) hosted by BIGD, World Bank and the Government of Bangladesh. Set up in 2014, this CoP seeks to “promote peer learning and evaluation amongst practitioners of performance management in countries of South Asian Region (SAR) countries, as a practice to enhance the quality of policy dialogue, and subsequent delivery of public services. The main instrument for implementing GPMS is the preparation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) between a concerned ministry and the cabinet division.”