Hello. Today is about measuring impact Why measure impact? Because while planning, we still don't know if our plan, if our forecast, has a positive impact, whether we're going in the right direction, towards set goals. Due to this, we need to measure. In order to measure, we need a number of key indicators. This is what we'll discuss in today's video. The basics of monitoring, when we want to understand, we want to see how things are going in cities, we need a starting point, we need a benchmark. We need to know what the starting data value was and from there we can monitor its development. However, we need to have a starting point. Clearly we need important data. When it comes to measuring impact, having two or three elements of data won't suffice. An array of data is needed, and that data needs to be updated. Again, there is no point in having benchmark data if we are unable, if we don't have the resources, we don't have the means to update the data daily. Monitoring, assessment, is carried out to evaluate our set objectives. We're not looking to have knowledge for its own sake, we want to know whether or not the goals we set have been reached. Then, once we've looked at our objectives, assessed whether our goals were reached or not, monitoring should then assist the decision making. It is therefore a cycle, like so, where we will gradually understand what is happening, see whether we've met our objectives and close the feedback loop in order to redefine future objectives. So this also helps in our decision making. Measuring the impact of our plan should help with the future decisions of that same plan. As we have already seen, in order to measure impact, to be able to <i>measure</i>, to find that measurement, we need an indicator. An indicator could be a figure, a percentage, but it is an element of knowledge, of a theme. What is an indicator? An indicator can be a measure, a measure which links information about a theme or which can highlight specific issues. But an indicator can also be a variable, as information simplification. And in this way we can also highlight a certain number of trends. An indicator can also be a model. A model is a simplification of a specific subject, usually a complex one. Therefore we're trying to model, or in other words, we're trying to render relatively complex processes understandable to the average person. The role of these indicators, is to enable assessment. So it's at the same time, from a diagnostics perspective, it allows us to capture the current situation of a city and it also allows us to assess impact. Therefore, they're used both as diagnostic tools and measures of impact, two different things. If we look at crime rates, they are a measure of impact. If I look at the square footage of industrial areas, it's not an impact, it's diagnostics. There are two types of measurements, two types of indicators, some used more diagnostically, and others as a measure of impact, with an overlap area in the middle, of course, and some which belong to both categories. With time, indicators went from being exclusively economic data. It was the first type of data we had regarding cities, to more social and environmental data. We've also moved away from quantitative data to more qualitative data. Therefore, indicators can come in many shapes or forms. They can be in the form of raw data: the price of bread, the price of electricity, ratios, the link between the number of linear feet of roads and the population of a city, which gives us an idea of the rate of development. The rate of road growth and networks, the recovery of roads by the city's road administration, based on the population, of course. We can also look at percentages, we've mentioned crime rates, it may be the one used most often. Percentages show the rate of urban development. There are other types of indicators, however, we won't look at them all today, but just keep them in mind: ratios, percentages or raw data. Examples of urban indicators: infrastructures, linear footage, the development of infrastructure housing, the amount of housing built, as well as parks and gardens, which is a bit of an extreme case for our African cities, but could we imagine an indicator of the same size as parks or garden in cities. As for measures of impact, we look at percentages of course, crime rates, everything that has to do with the population's health in its very structure, as well as questions like air quality. There you go. Here, too, there are hundreds, hundreds and hundreds, there is a considerable amount of indicators. The point, however, was simply to give you 2 or 3 indicators to help to explain the difference between indicators used for planning and ones used as measures of impact. Concerning impacts, we can have various themes, we are especially looking at social and environmental issues, as, indeed, we need to understand what is being measured. We can measure the extent of public policy, for example; it's one of the measurement possibilities that we have. We need a clear objective in order to measure an impact, which allows us to see whether or not we've reached said objective, as well as a report on the current situation. Trying to measure objectives is useless if you don't know the current situation. So, if I want to look at a theme, we could look at transportation, more specifically, we can look at the number of subway stations within a 500-meters radius, and then, we know that the objective would be for 50% of the population to live in a perimeter which is less than 500 meters from a subway station. Currently, we're maybe at 12%, therefore, we see there is a huge gap. We're at 12%, and we need to get to our goal of 50. From here, we can therefore gradually measure where we stand, year after year, at year 1, year 2, year 3 at first we'll be at 12, then maybe 16%, then maybe 20, and then we may decide that this goal of reaching 50% is maybe too high, therefore, we will re-evaluate, and lower this objective to 45%. We'll then go through the same process. We'll re-evaluate the objective and we'll make a loop, in this way, to see whether or not the objective we set is attainable. An example of a theme: urbanization. This may involve relatively simple and obvious issues such as square footage per capita, size of land per capita , acreage used, but we could say we want, as large a ratio as possible of water distribution per capita. So, we know, for example, that 10% of the population has direct access to a water tap and one of the objectives would be to reach, within 10 years, 20% instead of 10. So, these are simple things which are relatively easy to set up. It still requires us to know the benchmark data, the 10% benchmark, the current situation, with the assumption that we will continue to measure, year after year or every 2 to 3 years, to see the situation as it is, in order to compare with that first figure. Therefore, it is useless to have the benchmark situation if afterwards we don't monitor the project, and if data isn't gradually collected, we won't know how far we've come. And during a plan's assessment, if I haven't looked retrospectively at the benchmark data used to draw up the plan, then it serves me no purpose. We can say if it's good or bad, if it works on not, but we won't know whether or not the objectives were set. And in African cities a lot of work remains to be done. Not only do we have issues about implementing urbanization plans, but we are unable, today, to measure the impact of what we're planning. And this remains an open field since, to date, no one has truly taken it seriously. Of course, we have lots of departments, lots of ministries where these things are being or will be taken care of, but the true impact of the urbanization plan is that we're still having difficulties finding a satisfying example. Who uses what? We have a list of different parties here, a list of indicators, and certain parties need a certain number of indicators, others don't need any. Let's look at two examples. If I'm an urban planner, a city's population is a relevant indicator for me, as I need to plan out the city. The rate of urbanization is also an important figure to me. If I am in the private sector, with independent concerns regarding populaion then maybe it wouldn't be the indicator I would need. If I'm a NGO, if I am an international agency, if I'm the mayor of a city or a minister of urban development, then my objectives aren't the same. Therefore, for each different objective, we'll have different indicators. And so, for each party, there will be different indicators. So, once you have your indicators, it's important to know whom they'll serve, in which conditions and which contexts. How to select indicators? How should an indicator be?
