Tools for monitoring progress and achievements in Sustainable Prosperity in Urbanised Africa

To progress in achieving inclusive & sustainable social and economic development, we must learn to measure it, comprehensively and rigorously.  It is now widely acknowledged that cities both from developed and developing countries require monitoring tools with smart indicators, accurate data, targets and goals to support their vision and a long-term plan for sustainable development. They require sensitive monitoring systems that can be able to track progress and identify strength, setbacks and opportunities using progressive approaches and techniques in order to support the formulation of informed, practical and actionable policies. Urban areas also require periodic; assessments on their state of development, evaluation on policy outcomes and assessment of the impact of specific plans and actions. After holding extensive discussions with stakeholders around the world about comprehensive measuring tools and the missing links when policymakers focus on economic indicators like GDP to the exclusion of social and environment performance.
 

Fundamental Principles Guiding Tools and Indicator Development

To this end RED PACT-AFRICA INITIATIVE- has formulated four fundamental guiding principles in the design of all monitoring tools:

​

1. Measurement-Complete and Comprehensive measure: As the boundaries between nations, societies, sectors and compartments are dissolving, the realization is growing that life on earth needs to be looked at as an interlocking system. Just as we cannot address issues of development without issues of environment or addressing issues of economic progress without issues of security so when we look at the sustainability of development, we need to consider the sustainability of the economic, social and political as well as environment accompanying the development.  Most previous efforts to measures progress in human  development  and well-being of the society have focused on either economic indicators only or social indicators only or either with environmental sustainability, sometimes both without environmental sustainability; still leaving out very important determinants of human development.  The aim of RED PACT-AFRICA is to develop a complete, comprehensive, and holistic measures (Indicators and Indices) of prosperity and development for all people and relevant to all countries; people from all walks of life. Sustainable Urbanisation Index is one such measures which incorporates indicators of geospatial development, economic development, socio-political as well as environmental.

2. Results/Achievement Oriented – outcome not input: RED PACT-AFRICA aims at measuring what and how much have been achieved in improving the well-being of all people. Our aim is to measure the outcomes that matter to the lives of real people, not the inputs. It considers efforts and investment used to achieve what has been achieved only as link for advocacy, inputs can give wrong impression especially in societies where wastage and misappropriation of resources in rampant. This provides great opportunity for advocacy by analysing the relationships or discrepancies between budgets allocations or inputs and actual outcomes realised. For example, the people needs a measure of the length of roads paved not how much the government allocates for or spends on roads, how many people feel safe and secure and not what the government allocates for or spends on security

3. People – Centred Approach: RED PACT-AFRICA aims to capture how development, prosperity and progress reach people and how it is shared among all individual in the society. In recognition of the very special relationship that governments have with citizens, in particular, citizens have a right to services, to be treated equally and fairly by their governments, to expect transparency in the processes and to hold governments accountable, and expect the government to be responsive, efficient and effective in delivery of services to all citizens. People-Centered Approach is about finding out whether government programs and services actually reach down to the individual citizen and how they are shared.  The citizens’ point of view: When citizens think about public issues, they rarely think about how they fit into constitutional jurisdictions. Indeed, most have only a vague idea which departments or governments are responsible for which areas. Their attention is focused on the goals or outcomes they want achieved, such as making the streets safer, breathing unpolluted air, stimulating the economy or the caring for the sick, access to clean water, good houses, putting food on their tables, equal treatment etc. People – Centered Approach is a fundamental principle in measuring prosperity for all since it ensures that prosperity is measures at the lowest level of the society - at the level of an individual citizen or household.

4. Actionability: Integrating sound research, data analytics,informed actionable policies and action plans ensured that what gets measured gets done and get achieved. RED PACT-AFRICA aims to develop practical tools that will help leaders and practitioners in government, business and civil society at all levels (local, national and international) to implement policies and programs that will drive achievement of true success and sustainable and prosperous cities. To achieve that goal, we use carefully selected indicators and measure outcomes in a way that links directly to actions and interventions. The framework allows us to not only provide an aggregate country or city level score and ranking, but also supports granular analyses of specific areas of strength and weakness in policy actions. Transparency of measurement using a comprehensive framework helps change-makers identify, prioritise and act upon the most pressing issues in their societies.