Balancing accountability and learning: a review of Oxfam GB's global performance framework

This article explores Oxfam GB's early experience implementing an alternative approach to operationalising global outcome indicators as a means of understanding programme impact and organisational performance.Nongovernmental organisations operating in the international development sector need credible, reliable feedback on whether their interventions are making a meaningful difference, but they struggle with how they can access it in a practical, proportional way. In 2011, Oxfam GB established its Global Performance Framework (GPF) to enable the organisation to deliver on its commitments to be accountable to its wide range of stakeholders and improve its ability to both understand and communicate the impact of its programmes in seven thematic priorities. The GPF is comprised of two key elements: a Global Output Report which details what the organisation is doing to bring about a world free of poverty, inequality and injustice; and Effectiveness Reviews, intensive evaluation processes that consider the extent projects have contributed to change in relation to the particular global outcome indicator that it has been selected under.Three years in, Oxfam GB has undertaken a review of the GPF in order to acknowledge its strengths and weaknesses and inform decisions on how to strengthen and evolve the GPF to ensure it remains fit for purpose. While it is too early to draw overall conclusions on the approach, it is hoped that the lessons learned from this review of the first phase of implementation can be useful and informative for other development actors grappling with similar challenges.