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CSV
Lesson
Adequate risk assessment and mitigation measures are important to help ensure project readiness. Consultations with project beneficiaries and affected persons and conducting social impact assessments during appraisal help strengthen project design and implementation (e.g., identification of safeguards-compliant project sites, beneficiaries’ participation, land acquisition requirements, design of relatedredressed mechanisms, among other things). These facilitate in identifying candidate subproject locations so that unnecessary location changes that cause delays can be avoided.

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
When implementation arrangements are revised, it is vital to streamline the approval processes to facilitate subsequent project activities. After the Government of Australia's withdrawal of funding, the delay in the approval of the changes to the implementation arrangement also significantly delayed the recruitment of implementation consultants and in designing the water supply systems. This situation could have been avoided if timely approval of such change was prioritized, which could have allowed the civil works for designing water supply systems to commence on time

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
As part of PNP corporatization, tariff adjustment, and improving PNP’s accounting and financial management system have been implemented. However, the system was not in place to monitor PNP performance during implementation. A series of regular workshops should be organized for the PNPs and their respective provincial government representatives to discuss the issues and solutions related to tariffs, financial performance, accounts receivable, and other conditions under the service agreements.

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Reforms can be introduced and implemented if they are conditionally linked to capital investment. In addition, key reforms, including regulatory framework, corporatization of PNPs, and tariff adjustments, should be judiciously leveraged against associated capital investments. This approach should be continued and refined in future projects.

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Free water supply connection policy. The policy enabled all households, including poor and low-income families, to have access to piped water supply systems. As a result, 24-hour safe water supply and sanitation coverage in target provinces increased significantly, to more than 90%. This policy should be scaled up in all provinces to promote increased water service and sanitation coverage.

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The project’s monitoring and reporting system should be strengthened to include updates on the implementation of safeguard requirements. This is to allow (i) the public and affected villagers access to safeguard action plans, consultation opportunities, voluntary land donation criteria, and monitoring reports; and (ii) the PCU to be aware of problems during implementation that could be resolved in a timely manner.

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Some GAP targets were formulated unrealistically for the local context. For example, the target of setting quotas of 30% for female participation in the O&M of small-scale civil works was impractical. The works were carried out by communities in which women and men work together. This could have been avoided through consultation with women in subprojects’ areas. The GAP should also have included actions and targets relating to women’s time poverty to quantify gender benefits in the water supply sector more effectively.

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Roles and responsibilities, and implementation arrangements for raising awareness of health, hygiene, and sanitation in communities should be clearly identified from the very beginning of the project. As the MOH’s role was not well defined at the start of the project, its responsibilities were unclear.

Project Number: 36339-022
Project Name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Care should be exercised in designing new projects, in particular, in making urban population growth estimates in Lao PDR.

Project Number: 34197-032, 34197-042
Project Name: Lao People’s Democratic Republic: Northern and Central Regions Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The free connection policy has clearly shown its enormous impact on water supply coverage. A condition of connecting a premise to the water supply is that it must have a sanitation facility complying with local sanitation regulations. Residents are willing to install an approved sanitation facility so they can access the free connection to the piped system. Moreover, this policy has tremendously impacted sanitation coverage in the target communities.

Project Number: 34197-032, 34197-042
Project Name: Northern and Central Regions Water Supply and Sanitation Sector
Report Date:
Lesson
No new lessons.

Project Number: 31352-013
Project Name: Lao People’s Democratic Republic: Small Towns Development Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Given the limited time and resources under the project, capacity building for urban development administration authorities (UDAAs) focused on construction management and supervision, operation and maintenance (O&M) of infrastructure and of sanitary landfills, and exchange of lessons among UDAAs. Various workshops were organized on these topics for managerial staff, accountants, and engineers of UDAAs. By strengthening core capacities, the project created momentum for continued support of long-term capacity building to enable UDAAs to provide quality public services.

Project Number: 31352-013
Project Name: Small Towns Development Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The community's involvement in various project activities and its interactions with the government and project staff greatly enhanced the sense of ownership. Community participation and contribution was the key to successfully completing the village upgrading subcomponent. This was evidenced by the fact that the actual community contribution of $206,000, mainly in cash, exceeded the estimated amount of $200,000 expected at appraisal to be mainly as labor.

Project Number: 31352-013
Project Name: Small Towns Development Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The decentralized approach introduced during implementation contributed to strengthening the capacity of PIUs and speeded up project progress. PIUs demonstrated their abilities in implementing, supervising, and monitoring physical activities, as well as in managing civil works contracts. As a result, the project implementation was expedited at around midterm and caught up to schedule despite the delays in early stages of project implementation.

Project Number: 31352-013
Project Name: Small Towns Development Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The project's geographical coverage posed a major challenge to monitor subproject implementation in 12 project towns located all over the country from the northern tip (Phongsali) to the south (Samakkhixai). Particularly during rainy season, it was time-consuming for project coordination unit (PCU) staff and consultants to travel to the project towns, as well as for personnel from UDAAs and project implementation units (PIUs) to attend meetings and workshops.

Project Number: 31352-013
Project Name: Small Towns Development Sector Project
Report Date:
CSV