At peace with results! How to manage results demands with pragmatic bureaucracy
How can public agencies reconcile demands for measurable results and accountability with the flexibility needed to operate in complex environments?
Drawing on a new study on results measurement practices at Folke Bernadotte Academy, this seminar brings together researchers, practitioners and public agency leaders to discuss results-based management in peacebuilding, development cooperation, and the security sector.
Welcome to an Academic Insight Seminar exploring how results-based management works in practice and what enables it to support an agency’s mission.
The article At peace with results: Navigating results in Swedish peacebuilding support examines how the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), a public agency working with peace-building in the intersection of development cooperation and security, navigates competing demands for results. It explores the relationship between requirements for precise measurement and upward accountability and the need for adaptive implementation that responds to partners’ priorities.
The findings challenge the assumption that results-based management inevitably creates tensions and excessive bureaucracy. Instead, at FBA, staff use pragmatic bureaucratic skills to reinterpret results requirements while preserving operational flexibility. The study also raises questions about how organizational structures, processes, and methods serve as signals of progress towards future results.
What can other agencies, researchers and practitioners learn from this experience? When do results requirements improve practice, and when might they distort priorities? How much room should agencies and their staff have to reinterpret results requirements? How/Can flexibility and professional judgment be combined with transparency and accountability?
The seminar welcomes public agency leaders, practitioners, and researchers interested in management, accountability, and organizational learning in development cooperation, peacebuilding, and security.
Programme
09.00-09.20 Research insights: Navigating competing results demands
The authors introduce the article’s main findings and discuss their implications for results-based management in complex policy environments.
09.20-09.40
Agency practice: How FBA works
FBA’s Director-General Per Olsson Fridh shares the agency’s approach to results measurement and management explaining how demands for results are reconciled with the need to adapt.
09.40–11.00
Panel discussion: Learning across development cooperation and the security sector
Representatives from development cooperation agencies and public agencies in the security sector reflect on the findings and share experiences from their own organizations. The discussion will include questions from the audience.
Speakers:
Janet Vähämäki, Fredrik Söderbaum, Annika Hilgert, Susanna Alexius (Authors)
Per Olsson Fridh, Director General and Åsa Christiansson, Methods Coordinator, FBA
Panelists:
Annika Blakstad Otterstedt, Department Director Results, Sida
Per Olsson Fridh, Director General Folke Bernadotte Academy
TBC – representative(s) from other governmental agencies
Moderator:
Martin Carlsson-Wall, Professor, Center Director, Center for Security and Resilience, Stockholm School of Economics
Hosted by:
Center for Security and Resilience at Stockholm School of Economics, Folke Bernadotte Academy and Stockholm Environment Institute
The research has been financed by Folke Bernadotte Academy.