International aid agencies have, for the past several years, been trying to find ways to standardize results indicators, in order to simplify their agency-wide reporting. Different agencies use such indicators in different ways, however, and there can be difficulties in finding indicators which aggregate well, yet are appropriate to individual countries and indicators which are useful for reporting, accurately, on results for individual projects.
For those implementing agencies which must deal with the standard indicators donors want them to use, a 2014 the German Development Institute study could be useful.
The Role of Indicators in Development Cooperation, by Sara Holzapfel describes the advantages and disadvantages of using standard indicators, and of how different donor agencies approach their use.
