5 Examination of Expenditure and Public
Service Agreements
48) We have continued our practice of conducting
an inquiry into DFID's own Annual Report. For this year's inquiry
we went beyond our usual evidence session with the DFID Permanent
Secretary. We took oral evidence from the Secretary of State to
hear his views on the outcomes of a major international conference,
the UN High Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
which took place in New York in September. DFID's objectives,
as set out in its Public Service Agreements are directly tied
to the MDGs. Global progress on the MDGs is therefore inextricably
linked to the assessment of DFID's own effectiveness. The UK has
been at the forefront of efforts to revitalise momentum towards
achievement of the MDGs by 2015, a deadline which seems worryingly
close given the lack of progress on a number of the targets in
many parts of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.
49) Our inquiry also looked at what DFID's expenditure
is achieving. We have criticised DFID previously for measuring
inputs rather than outcomes. We were keen to assess what more
could be done to improve DFID's impact evaluation. We took evidence
from the Independent Advisory Committee on Development Impact
(IACDI) which DFID has recently established to improve its performance
on evaluation. IACDI's terms of reference require its Chair to
write to the Secretary of State annually to provide an assessment
of DFID's evaluation process and to copy the letter to us. We
will comment on the letter and on DFID's performance in our forthcoming
report on the DFID Annual Report 2008.
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