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The field of international development mirrors the complex ways in which the people of the world rely on each other to survive and flourish. The framework in this book probes the inter-reliance within, and between, organizations in developing countries. Within these organizations, people and groups of people act with, and depend on, each other to reach worthy common goals. On a larger scale but for the same reason, these organizations themselves must learn to collaborate effectively. This book focuses on the importance of organizations to development and provides a framework to help them operate more efficiently.

How do we make development assistance more effective and efficient? We have progressed greatly after several decades of change and reform. Yet the pace of economic and social change for which we can accept some credit still falls short of the need, and of its potential. For development organizations, changing ourselves to heighten our own performance is a critical part of widening and deepening our reach. Supporting myriad government ministries, research centers and executing agencies in their quest for better performance also remains a major challenge. We continue, too, to face our boards’ and donor governments’ desires for accountability and for results. Rightly, they want to know that our support for a project will assure that it brings sustainable improvements, whether that support comprises loans and grants, or whether it boosts research and research capacity.

What, then, can agencies like the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) do? What frameworks can help guide our actions and help us learn for the future? We need economic and social changes. To attain these, we know that organizational behavior must change, too. Our own experiences show that organizations worldwide must learn to work better together to reinforce each other’s accomplishments. Those of us who give them development assistance and loans play a role in fostering that synergy and cooperation.

This book arose from the need to give organizations concrete ways to study their own critical interplay and to change them, for the good of the entity and its goals. The book contains a set of usable, tested tools that organizations can employ to change themselves, so that they can better change the world.

IDRC first published this framework in 1995. The IDB very quickly became involved in applying and using it, and has been instrumental in the field-testing. This greatly updated and expanded framework has grown from our combined experiences. IDRC and Universalia have applied these tools in organizations in West Africa, South Asia, and, along with the IDB, in Latin America. Each organization has its own story to tell. This book interprets these stories so that others can learn and benefit from these experiences.

As with the first book, this new edition reports on external and internal efforts to strengthen organizations, using concrete actions based on clear-eyed diagnoses at the onset of development activities. To use the book and benefit from it, you only need be interested in improving your organization’s performance—whether you are in a new organization, an organization in change, a joint venture, or an “electronic organization.”

The book itself has resulted from the kind of collaboration we seek to foster among organizations in the development community. The IDB has helped update many of the theoretical and practical components, and is pleased to help disseminate them further. The mutual learning we have experienced as we have co-published this book lays the foundation for further interagency cooperation.

Work in developing countries—in fact, in all countries the world over—is always a work in progress. Seldom can we stamp the development process as “finished.” Organizational Assessment: A Framework for Improving Performance is also a work in progress. As collaborators in researching, testing and writing it, we realize that when it comes to the task of changing organizations, few solutions are absolute. For that reason, we urge you to send us your feedback and comments. We know we’ll write subsequent editions, and we welcome your contributions.

Document(s) 1 of 13