A method for monitoring network performance includes: sending correspondences between a remote network element and a plurality of IP addresses thereof from a network management device to a local network element; according to the correspondences, calculating performance parameters between the local IP address and the plurality of remote IP addresses respectively, by the local network element; making a statistics of the calculated performance parameters by the local network element. A network element for monitoring network performance, connected with a network management device and a remote network element, includes: a receiving unit, a performance parameter processing unit, a performance parameter statistics unit, and the transmitting unit. A network system for monitoring network performance is further provided. According to embodiments of this invention, the efficient measurement of network performance including IP QoS between each two MGWs of an IP network, RTP stream bandwidths, and the like, is realized, thus the message bandwidth of performance test can be saved and processing load of the network management device can be reduced.