Maximising the value for money of donor investments is vital to ensuring the outcomes and impact promised by programmes, and therefore critical to delivering inclusive growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. In 2016, ICED co-developed a series of ‘how-to’ guides setting out succinct, easy-to-follow advice on how to deliver value for money with a focus on infrastructure programming. This article summarises how donors can use cost indicators at each stage of the infrastructure investment lifecycle to improve value for money, and empower programme donors to work with implementing partners to collect the necessary data to do so.
Introduction to value for money cost indicators
This work was carried out under the Infrastructure and Cities for Economic Development (ICED) facility.
ICED supported DFID country offices, central teams and ODA-spending Other Government Departments to deliver DFID’s Economic Development Strategy by scaling up programming and investment in infrastructure and cities. It operated between February 2016 and July 2019.
