An Attempt at Harmonizing Project Indicators

It’s common for projects to define their own indicators and ways of measuring values. The group on agriculture economics will be convening a Skype call to have a look at the options to change the situation for the future.

Many agricultural GIZ projects capture and measure similar indicators and key figures to assess their progress against their overall objectives.

Common indicators in value chain programs often focus, for example, on productivity and income, but more and more also on employment effects. Until now, each program has its own way of defining and measuring those figures and hence, it is often difficult to compare them.

Thus, there is a lot of potential for discussion, setting measurement procedures and defining standards, which would also help the monitoring of programs and the aggregation of indicators on a higher level, for example across several projects and countries.

Against this backdrop, the SNRD working group Agribusiness and Inclusive Value Chain Development, the Sectoral Department (FMB) and the sector project Agricultural Trade and Value Chains want to bring together colleagues from different programs to discuss ways on how to measure respective figures and to set standards.

The results of a brief survey

A survey among interested colleagues has shown that there is a specific interest in the measurement of income with respect to the following themes:

  • GM calculations
  • Farm household economics
  • Aggregating income and employment effects on a target group
  • Using World Bank conversion rates of US PPP (purchasing power parities) to be able to compare and aggregate incomes over different countries and years
  • Preparation of agricultural economics training material, including the integration of farm economics in training materials on good agricultural practices

Starting the discussion

We would like to start our discussion with this topic and organize a Skype-for-Business meeting in which different measurement approaches shall be presented and discussed. Those colleagues interested to participate and share their experience should contact Eberhard and Karina so as to be included in the first call.

Contacts

Sector project Agricultural Trade and Value Chains: Karina.Brenneis@giz.de
SNRD-Working Group, Agribusiness and Inclusive Value Chain Development, Tandem Partner: Eberhard.Krain@giz.de