What is the difference between an output and an outcome indicator?

An output indicator counts what the project delivered — households paid, people trained, houses built. An outcome indicator measures what changed for the affected people — income against baseline, area under cultivation, occupancy of replacement housing after three years. Livelihood restoration is an outcome obligation, so output reporting cannot evidence it, and a completion audit will say so.

What indicators does a completion audit actually test?

Whether compensation was paid before displacement, whether it was adequate at the date of payment, whether livelihoods were restored to at least pre-project levels, whether vulnerable households were individually assisted, and whether grievances were resolved. Everything else in a monitoring framework supports one of those five questions.

How long should monitoring continue after resettlement?

Long enough to observe whether restoration held, which means several years rather than several quarters. Two indicators in particular need time: household income against baseline over at least three years, and occupancy of replacement housing by the original household — resale and quiet departure typically shows up in year two or three, and a programme that stops monitoring at handover will never see it.

What is the compensation adequacy ratio?

The amount actually paid divided by what the same replacement basket costs at the date of payment. It is the only indicator that tests whether compensation was still replacement cost when it arrived, and almost no project computes it — the data required is the valuation date, the payment date and a small basket repriced locally, all of which any competent register already holds.

Can these indicators be computed from a standard census?

Only if the census was designed for them. Income by source, total holding area, common-property use and service access all have to be captured at baseline or the corresponding indicator is decorative. That is the argument for naming the monitoring indicators in the terms of reference, before the survey instrument is designed.

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RAP Monitoring Indicators Template (Outcome-Based)

22 resettlement monitoring indicators with formula, baseline source, frequency, disaggregation and target — built around outcomes rather than activity counts.

22 indicators · formula and baseline source for each

Most resettlement monitoring counts activity

Households paid. Training sessions held. Houses constructed. Grievances received. All of it true, all of it reportable monthly, and none of it capable of answering the question a completion audit asks, which is whether the people this project displaced are worse off than they were before.

The distinction is not academic. A programme can deliver every planned activity and still produce impoverishment, and where the framework contains no outcome indicator, nothing in the reporting will show it until an external audit arrives years later.

The three indicators worth arguing for

Household income against baseline. The only indicator that directly tests the livelihood restoration obligation. It requires income by source to have been captured at census, which is why the monitoring framework has to be designed before the survey instrument rather than after it.
Compensation adequacy ratio. Amount paid over the cost of the replacement at the payment date. Any register holds the dates; the only additional work is repricing a small basket locally. It is the check that reveals a programme paying assessed amounts in full and still leaving households short.
Occupancy of replacement housing by the original household, at three years. The clearest available signal of whether a resettlement site actually worked. Households that sell or let and move back nearer their livelihoods are usually recorded as non-compliant beneficiaries; they are more accurately a site selection failure.

Disaggregate, or the vulnerable disappear

A programme reporting household averages will show recovery while the households flagged as most at risk at baseline are the ones who did not recover — because they are a small share of the population and the average absorbs them.

Every outcome indicator here carries a disaggregation column for that reason: sex of the claimant, vulnerability flag, and severity of loss. The third is the most useful and the least used, and it is derivable from data the census already collects.

Questions

What is the difference between an output and an outcome indicator?: An output indicator counts what the project delivered — households paid, people trained, houses built. An outcome indicator measures what changed for the affected people — income against baseline, area under cultivation, occupancy of replacement housing after three years. Livelihood restoration is an outcome obligation, so output reporting cannot evidence it, and a completion audit will say so.
What indicators does a completion audit actually test?: Whether compensation was paid before displacement, whether it was adequate at the date of payment, whether livelihoods were restored to at least pre-project levels, whether vulnerable households were individually assisted, and whether grievances were resolved. Everything else in a monitoring framework supports one of those five questions.
How long should monitoring continue after resettlement?: Long enough to observe whether restoration held, which means several years rather than several quarters. Two indicators in particular need time: household income against baseline over at least three years, and occupancy of replacement housing by the original household — resale and quiet departure typically shows up in year two or three, and a programme that stops monitoring at handover will never see it.
What is the compensation adequacy ratio?: The amount actually paid divided by what the same replacement basket costs at the date of payment. It is the only indicator that tests whether compensation was still replacement cost when it arrived, and almost no project computes it — the data required is the valuation date, the payment date and a small basket repriced locally, all of which any competent register already holds.
Can these indicators be computed from a standard census?: Only if the census was designed for them. Income by source, total holding area, common-property use and service access all have to be captured at baseline or the corresponding indicator is decorative. That is the argument for naming the monitoring indicators in the terms of reference, before the survey instrument is designed.

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The software behind this

SmartLARMS keeps this as a live record, not a spreadsheet

A template is a starting point. The version that survives a completion audit is one where every change is attributed to a person and a date, and where the numbers reconcile to what was actually paid.

Talk to us → olules@smartlarms.com