Delivery Units were established under the mandate of moving the pieces of the management cycle: using data in a centralized way to understand the past and identify future trends, and monitoring government priorities to identify bottlenecks and incentivize efficient decision-making.
What has been the balance of this experience so far?
From electoral promises to the dashboard
For any incoming government team, setting ambitious, yet realistic management goals is not an easy task. Strong political will is needed to prioritize campaign promises, closely monitor their implementation and, above all, be accountable for meeting those goals.
What happened to the electoral promises once they were put on a Delivery Unit’s dashboard? An evaluation by the IDB analyzed 15 experiences in Latin America and the Caribbean with Delivery Units and found the following positive effects:
Support to gain “focus” on government priorities. Delivery Units helped better define the what and how of priorities: concrete objectives, with realistic goals, and with very specific managers and strategies. They also contributed to greater accountability in the cabinet and improved government response when targets are not being achieved.
Tangible results for citizens. Delivery Units contributed to reducing homicide, victimization and cell phone theft rates, improving school performance on standardized tests, reducing deaths from preventable diseases and improving the stock of medicines and medical supplies, and reducing delays in the execution of public works, among others. In Colombia, for example, cell phone theft in 10 selected cities fell 12% in one year.
Higher performance in certain institutional settings. Delivery Units are perceived as especially useful in contexts of less institutional development. Also in those cases where there are complex multisectoral priorities that involve more than one ministry (combating poverty, creating jobs, productivity, early childhood, citizen security, … etc. ).
At the same time that Delivery Units have been advancing in the region, there has been an increase in multisectoral public policies. In a 2019 IDB-OECD survey of eleven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, 72% of governments reported that multisectoral initiatives in their country had increased between 2013 and 2018.
Delivery Units 2.0: More agile, more digital, closer to decision making
The Delivery Unit model has established itself as a management tool as the governments of our region have experimented with the concept. Three features are highlighted in the most recent experiences:
1. Greater proximity to the Center of Government. Initially, DUs used to report to the Minister of the Presidency or equivalent – who tends to focus on coordinating with the legislature and being the government’s spokesperson. The most recent DUs, by contrast, report directly to the President – for example, the Colombian Department of Management and Compliance, the Management Unit of Paraguay, and the Compliance Office of Honduras. This allows them to monitor the fulfillment of electoral promises more effectively and gives them greater legitimacy in front of the cabinet.
2. Shorter learning curve and greater sophistication. In the beginning, some Latin American DUs took a year to formalize, define their role and establish the government priorities on which they were to focus. They coordinated between sectors on an ad hoc basis and in practice operated as a monitoring unit. The second generation of Delivery Units is formalized before, dominates their relations with other teams and meets international best practices. This enables them to quickly support the cabinet in defining priorities, preparing robust and budget-bound compliance plans, and focusing not only on monitoring but also on performance improvement.
3. Greater use of new technologies. The first DUs had, at most, one control panel. Today, the new generation of DUs is increasingly moving towards a Smart Delivery Unit model. The DU of the Presidency of Colombia, for example, will be implementing a Management and Analysis Information Control System through a project financed by the IDB to enhance its analytical capacity and thus better support the Presidency and the cabinet.
The pending agenda of the DUs: subnational governments and sector ministries
The Delivery Units model can not only be applied to a national government. It can also be carried out within a sector, a specific institution, or in a sub-national government. However, in Latin America, beyond some cases such as the State of Pernambuco , the City of Buenos Aires or the Ministry of Education in Peru, the potential of DUs has not yet been exploited at the subnational level and in sector ministries. This contrasts with the experience of the United States, where this type of tool has been used almost exclusively in these two segments ( departments and agencies in the federal government and, especially, cities ).
Making electoral promises is easy, but keeping them is sometimes more complicated. Governing effectively and achieving a real impact on the quality of life of citizens is essential for the consolidation of our democracies. Without a doubt, Delivery Units are an example of innovations in public management that are consolidating in our region. And the results begin to prove them right.
A version of this blog first appeared on the Inter-American Development Bank blog.
