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Lesson
No new lessons

Project Number: 44265-013
Project Name: Second Health Care in the Central Highlands Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Processing teams need to ensure that the scope and cost estimate of projects are realistic and reflect the actual contexts. Changes in the procurement plan and safeguards document necessitated by the revisions in project scope and costs caused startup delays. The Viet Nam component had a large amount of undisbursed budget because of overestimations in the cost of civil works and land acquisition and resettlement. Advance actions to engage critical consultants early enough should have helped mitigate the delays.

Project Number: 41444-013
Project Name: Second Northern Greater Mekong Subregion Transport Network Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Review of the gender action plan (GAP) should be done within a year from loan effectiveness to facilitate the enhancement of both the GAP and project implementation. GAP implementation in Viet Nam was challenged by the late recruitment of a gender consultant, which prevented the EA/IA from receiving timely capacity-building inputs and limited the opportunity of the project to improve its gender equality design and targets.

Project Number: 41444-013
Project Name: Second Northern Greater Mekong Subregion Transport Network Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Administration by a single team of future regional projects will enable better assessment of their regional impacts. The sector division in ADB headquarters delegated the administration of this project to respective resident missions after the midterm review in 2016. Country review missions were conducted separately after the delegation, causing discrepancies in loan financial management, safeguard compliance, and benefits and results monitoring. This led to difficulties in assessing the project's regional impacts.

Project Number: 41444-013
Project Name: Second Northern Greater Mekong Subregion Transport Network Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Reduced counterpart funding and increased use of loan proceeds will facilitate timely implementation and project closure. This project was designed with substantial counterpart funding from governments. While demonstrating strong ownership, this affected implementation as the governments were unable to disburse the budget on time. Besides reducing the requirement for counterpart funding, sufficient documentation and incorporation of counterpart fund releases in the audited annual financial statements can help facilitate the financial closing of future projects.

Project Number: 41444-013
Project Name: Second Northern Greater Mekong Subregion Transport Network Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Opportunities for knowledge exchange and sharing among resident mission staff need to be included in the design of regional projects. Regional cooperation and integration elements were not included in this project. As a result, resident mission staff missed the opportunity to share knowledge and exchange experiences that would have enhanced their capacities.

Project Number: 41444-013
Project Name: Second Northern Greater Mekong Subregion Transport Network Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Establishment of professional project administration divisions and retention of experienced and trained government officials in these units can help mitigate the risk of project delays. Project implementation experienced substantial delays despite the preparation of time-bound action plans, project completion was still delayed by 60 months for Lao PDR and 48 months for Viet Nam. The recurrence of this experience in this project may be better addressed by putting in place professional project administration divisions, staffed by trained and experienced personnel.

Project Number: 41444-013
Project Name: Second Northern Greater Mekong Subregion Transport Network Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Delayed implementation of an associated project can seriously affect the success potential of another. This project was critically dependent on the progress of tranche 1 of the Town Electrification Investment Program (TEIP). Specifically, it was to connect 4,500 rural households to the grid being extended under the TEIP tranche 1 project. The grid itself was to be maintained by the hydropower plants being constructed under the tranche 1 project. However, as tranche 1 incurred extensive delays so did this project which took 9 years to be completed versus the planned 3 years.

Project Number: 41504-024
Project Name: Improved Energy Access for Rural Communities
Report Date:
Lesson
Drawing from similar past project experiences, as part of due diligence, will help minimize or avoid cost underestimations. The connection costs under this project were underestimated by 250%, resulting in the project installing only 43% of its planned 4,500 household connections. More thorough due diligence should have been carried out during project preparation, with cost estimates validated by experiences under similar past projects.

Project Number: 41504-024
Project Name: Improved Energy Access for Rural Communities
Report Date:
Lesson
Corporatized public enterprises operating on a cost-recovery basis need government funding support for infrastructure improvements. Provision of government counterpart funding should have been a condition for grant effectiveness. Instead, the executing agency, the Papua New Guinea Power Limited (PPL), partially made funds available for civil works. PPL, as a corporatized enterprise, is mandated to operate on a cost-recovery basis and did not have sufficient funding allocation.

Project Number: 41504-024
Project Name: Improved Energy Access for Rural Communities
Report Date:
Lesson
Alternatives to grid connection should have been considered to electrify more rural poor communities. Inclusion of alternatives that are beneficial to low-usage rural customers, including solar home systems and mini grids, could have expanded project coverage and enhanced its impact.

Project Number: 41504-024
Project Name: Improved Energy Access for Rural Communities
Report Date:
Lesson
It is important to reassess Indicators at midterm. In addition to project review, a reassessment of the performance Indicators at midterm should have led to adjustments in the project design, including targets and implementation timeframes. These would have bolstered the project’s potential for success.

Project Number: 41504-024
Project Name: Improved Energy Access for Rural Communities
Report Date:
Lesson
Equity issues need to be carefully considered and addressed in beneficiary selection and targeting. The potential for political influence in the selection of communities that would benefit from grid connection was identified as a risk. To mitigate this risk, independent consultants were engaged to develop the beneficiary selection criteria, which would eventually stipulate that (i) customers were to be within 250 meters of the transmission line, (ii) construction of the property had to be sound, and (iii) households must have the financial means to pay for the electricity provided.

Project Number: 41504-024
Project Name: Improved Energy Access for Rural Communities
Report Date:
Lesson
Project preparatory and startup activities should be synchronized to avoid wastage of time and resources. The implementation of subprojects in multiple geographic locations and the need to manage the storage of equipment delivered years before installation added to the challenges in managing this project. Furthermore, consultant recruitment was not aligned to implementation progress.

Project Number: 41504-024
Project Name: Improved Energy Access for Rural Communities
Report Date:
Lesson
Clarity on implementation roles and responsibilities and consistent collection and monitoring of Gender-disaggregated data are key to the successful execution of the project Gender action plan (GAP). Gender trainings at inception stage provided clarity on the roles and responsibilities of consultants and implementing agency staff. The well-defined division of labor provided a strong kickstart to the implementation of the GAP. Integration of sex-disaggregated data collection into the system enabled reliable Monitoring and evaluation of GAP progress throughout the project.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date: