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Lesson
In small island developing countries with limited policy reform capacity, ADB should avoid targeting multiple reform areas in one policy-based grant, particularly during a crisis.

Project Number: 52030-001
Project Name: Strengthening Macroeconomic Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Overly ambitious performance indicators can undermine some of the program’s achievements, particularly when reforms are undertaken during a crisis. In this program, The higher-level objective of a more inclusive, sustainable, and dynamic knowledge-based economy did not relate closely to the policy actions in the program—apart from the introduction of technical and vocational education and training.

Project Number: 52030-001
Project Name: Strengthening Macroeconomic Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Failing to describe and include the history of prior experience of a particular reform in the program weakens the case for their relevance. In Tonga, civil service reform had an extended history. Pointing out the lessons learned from earlier efforts and how they were incorporated into the current program would have strengthened the justification for these reforms.

Project Number: 52030-001
Project Name: Strengthening Macroeconomic Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
At the methodology level, actions that demonstrate the achievement of program policy matrix milestones should indicate what was achieved, rather than the process of their accomplishment. Cabinet approval is an inadequate indicator to demonstrate the successful implementation of policy reform in Tonga.

Project Number: 52030-001
Project Name: Strengthening Macroeconomic Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
It is important to prepare meaningful monitoring frameworks with relevant and clearly defined indicators and targets to assess project effectiveness objectively. For example, the service area (Nuku’alofa water supply network or the overall Tongatapu island) to which the baseline data refer to are unclear (footnotes 16 and 17). In addition, the PCR noted that some of the gender indicators were outside of the project’s sphere of influence and could have been better defined.

Project Number: 42394-022
Project Name: Nuku'alofa Urban Development Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Ensuring that contractors engage project management and supervision team with adequate capacity is important. The reason for delays in implementing works contracts and the poor quality of works at the beginning of the project was the low performance of works contractors, who did not provide adequate management and supervision staff in accordance with their contractual obligations. Implementation agencies had to provide additional input to compensate contractors’ deficiencies, which resulted in high additional costs for consulting services.

Project Number: 42394-022
Project Name: Nuku'alofa Urban Development Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Timely capacity development for executing agencies with limited experience in ADB’s procurement rules and in safeguard requirements are important for an efficient project implementation. For example, retendering of TWB’s first works contract caused significant delays and could have been avoid

Project Number: 42394-022
Project Name: Nuku'alofa Urban Development Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
In small island developing countries with limited policy reform capacity, ADB should avoid targeting multiple reform areas in one policy-based operation—i.e., debt management, civil service reform, management of the wage bill, public procurement, and private sector development—and keep prior actions to a minimum.

Project Number: 48361-001, 48361-002, 48361-003
Project Name: Building Macroeconomic Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Policy reform programs with complex and multiple interventions require rigorous identification and assessment of the political economy and capacity risks to ensure overall effectiveness.

Project Number: 48361-001, 48361-002, 48361-003
Project Name: Building Macroeconomic Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Actions that demonstrate the achievement of program policy matrix milestones should indicate what has been achieved, rather than the process of their accomplishment. For example, Cabinet approval is an inadequate indicator to demonstrate a successful policy reform in Tonga.

Project Number: 48361-001, 48361-002, 48361-003
Project Name: Building Macroeconomic Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Limited capacity of government staff should be considered in designing reform programs. The 34 policy actions for a crisis response operation stretched out the government’s capacity in absorbing a substantial reform agenda. Constraints to capacity were reflected in the delays in complying with the policy actions, in particular with the policy action on financial ratios, which resulted in waiver of this action.

Project Number: 43152-012
Project Name: Economic Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Reform prioritization and sequencing could lead to more durable results. A steady, step-by-step pace of reforms may be more suitable in the Tongan context, given prevailing capacity constraints. The process of implementing reforms takes time, especially for reforms that require specialized skills, such as those in PFM and those that are structural in nature; these types of reforms take time to implement and cannot be completed by a single quick-disbursing stand-alone program.

Project Number: 43152-012
Project Name: Economic Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
In small island economies, fiscal consolidation measures should take into account the size of the public sector. The role and magnitude of the public sector in a small, island economy and sporadic wage increases for civil servants put pressure on recurrent expenditure. These make it difficult to manage fiscal expenditure over time. A small economic base limits areas for alternative employment opportunities. This could imply that the share of the public sector in the economy would remain large in the longer term.

Project Number: 46385-001
Project Name: Strengthening Public Financial Management Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Short-duration programs should consider time lags for policy actions. A program of short timeframe should adequately reflect the time lags that usually occur in implementing policy actions. It would be difficult for a short-duration program, even with up-front delivery of vital reforms, to achieve indicators involving external debt-togross domestic product, revenue mobilization, sustainable fiscal outturn, and improvements in Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability ratings due to time lags of these actions.

Project Number: 46385-001
Project Name: Strengthening Public Financial Management Program
Report Date:
Lesson
No new lessons

Project Number: 43321-013, 43321-023
Project Name: Public Sector Program—Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date: