Nearly everyone complains about how governments provide public services, but how to make government agencies function more efficiently can seem a futile task. Targeting Commitment offers success stories from New Zealand, where the government used interagency goals-setting to improve the delivery of public services, especially for the disadvantaged, and to encourage creative work by its public servants. The story told by Targeting Commitment began in 2012, when New Zealand adopted a reform package called Better Public Services, which challenged the government to focus for five years on achieving ten results that had been resistant to previous efforts. The overall aim was to change people's lives, particularly for those in need, including abused children, habitual offenders, and children with health conditions related to poverty. The plan was deceptively simple: agencies were told to set ambitious targets and publicly report on progress every six months; hold small groups of public managers collectively responsible; use lead indicators; and learn from both success and failure. Using case studies from this reform, the authors show how ambitious targets and public accountability were used as levers to overcome the bureaucratic barriers that impeded public service delivery, and how data, evidence, and innovation were used to change practice. New Zealand experimented, in the process failing, succeeding, and learning how to do things better. The New Zealand experience demonstrates that interagency performance targets are a potentially powerful tool for fostering better public services and thus helping to make people's lives better. Targeting Commitment tells a dynamic story of hope and innovation. The lessons learned can be applied to other societies as well, showing how focusing on specific goals can inspire public servants to solve complex problems. Book jacket.