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Lesson
Strong project design, including carefully thought-out subproject selection criteria and adequate financial assessments can help reduce the need for scope changes and mitigate the risk of implementation delays. At approval, this project included seven subprojects in five provinces. Four of the seven subprojects were dropped in 2016 and 2017 because of changes in the companies’ investment priorities, changes in management due to the equitization process, and/or insufficient financial capacity.

Project Number: 41456-043
Project Name: Water Sector Investment Program - Tranche 3
Report Date:
Lesson
A strong design and monitoring framework, with better defined outcomes and outputs and measurable indicators, and the setting up of a project performance and monitoring system during project preparation or at project startup could help track implementation challenges. These may have helped mitigate the risk of scope changes, loan cancellations, and early implementation delays due mainly to delays in startup activities, such as signing of subsidiary loan agreements, detailed engineering design, bidding document preparation, and delays in land acquisition and resettlement.

Project Number: 41456-043
Project Name: Water Sector Investment Program - Tranche 3
Report Date:
Lesson
Strong central coordination is necessary to ensure consistent monitoring and reporting and more effective lessons-sharing among multiple implementing agencies. The Ministry of Planning and Investment was designated as the coordinating agency for the entire MFF-financed investment program, while project 3 activities—procurement and recruitment, construction supervision, financial management, safeguards compliance, monitoring, and reporting—were implemented by the participating water supply coompanies (WSCs).

Project Number: 41456-043
Project Name: Water Sector Investment Program - Tranche 3
Report Date:
Lesson
Close executing agency (EA) involvement is essential throughout the implementation phase. But this was lacking in this project, which saw the provincial people's committees, the project EAs, having limited involvement in project implementation. This strengthen the case for stronger central coordination by a line ministry to facilitate timely decision-making and approvals, provide closer supervision, ensure more consistent monitoring and reporting, and promote lessons sharing to improve performance.

Project Number: 41456-043
Project Name: Water Sector Investment Program - Tranche 3
Report Date:
Lesson
Continued timely adjustments in tariffs could make projects financially viable. The project financial reevaluation at completion concluded that the project was financially viable subject to continued timely adjustments in tariff. This has legal basis as Decree 124/2011/ND-CP allows WSCs to propose water tariffs in a tariff roadmap, which provincial governments approve. The tariff roadmaps of the participating WSCs included adjustments every two years. However, only one adjustment was made in 2019–2022 due to the impacts of COVID-19.

Project Number: 41456-043
Project Name: Water Sector Investment Program - Tranche 3
Report Date:
Lesson
Stronger coordination with other ADB projects in the same province is needed at the programming stage. One previous ADB project has supported four coal cities in green economic diversification and developed diagnostic analysis and roadmap for diversification. The original TA proposal envisaged similar support. The potential overlap was addressed during TA processing by shifting the focus of this one on advancing innovation-enabling environment for green economic diversification

Project Number: 54037-001
Project Name: Innovation-Driven Green Economic Diversification for Resource-Exhausted Cities in Heilongjiang
Report Date:
Lesson
Sufficient time for visa application and domestic approval procedure needs to be taken into consideration for international study tours.

Project Number: 54037-001
Project Name: Innovation-Driven Green Economic Diversification for Resource-Exhausted Cities in Heilongjiang
Report Date:
Lesson
A policy brief, summarizing the key messages and findings from the TA, is an effective tool to facilitate wider replication of the experience and knowledge from the TA, especially when the final TA consultant report is very comprehensive with heavy data.

Project Number: 54037-001
Project Name: Innovation-Driven Green Economic Diversification for Resource-Exhausted Cities in Heilongjiang
Report Date:
Lesson
High-level leadership facilitates the support and participation of all stakeholders and government entities in TA activities. Direct leadership of a deputy director general-level government officer, with strong expertise and interest in economics and management, championed the active engagement and contribution of local stakeholders throughout implementation, and this significantly contributed to the TA’s high effectiveness.

Project Number: 54037-001
Project Name: Innovation-Driven Green Economic Diversification for Resource-Exhausted Cities in Heilongjiang
Report Date:
Lesson
A TA coordinator role should be considered at the TA design stage if heavy coordination work is expected. The TA required engagement with multiple provincial government agencies and city governments. The coordination had been difficult at the start of implementation. The TA team engaged an experienced TA coordinator using TA savings and successfully addressed the coordination issue.

Project Number: 54037-001
Project Name: Innovation-Driven Green Economic Diversification for Resource-Exhausted Cities in Heilongjiang
Report Date:
Lesson
Designation of existing consultants to higher positions and responsibility levels may be explored to fill vacancies during implementation. There were two changes to the team leader position. The first was due to the resignation of the specialist because of an unexpected urgent assignment from his hiring university. The consultant recruited as the replacement team leader was not capable of performing the role. Instead of going through contract termination and recruitment process again, the TA team appointed the national simulation specialist, who had demonstrated strong leadership.

Project Number: 54037-001
Project Name: Innovation-Driven Green Economic Diversification for Resource-Exhausted Cities in Heilongjiang
Report Date:
Lesson
A well-designed project performance management system (PPMS) from the outset can enhance the quality of economic analyses. This system facilitates the systematic collection of data on project benefits and pertinent metrics, enabling the monitoring of project performance until completion. Specifically, monitoring the project's progress, identifying areas for improvement, and collecting socioeconomic data through a PPMS, could all help establish a comprehensive assessment of a project’s development results and improve the quality of economic analysis.

Project Number: 41403-013
Project Name: Urban Water Supply Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The development of a regulatory framework alongside the preparation of a project’s technical design could help enhance the autonomy and sustainability of water utilities. This, in turn, could lead to improved service delivery and better maintenance of project assets. Such a framework could include mechanisms for independent oversight and regulation of water utilities' operations and performance, as well as the provision of clear guidelines and policies for tariff setting and cost recovery, among other aspects.

Project Number: 41403-013
Project Name: Urban Water Supply Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Project readiness filters and advanced actions are effective tools in mitigating the risk of startup and implementation delays. This project experienced a 2.5-year startup delay, which could have been minimized by implementing project readiness filters and advance actions, including procurement capacity building of the executing and implementing agencies during project preparation.

Project Number: 43316-012
Project Name: Pakse Urban Environmental Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Counterpart funding arrangemnets need to be ascertained if doable in the local context. The project required the government and local communities to contribute 10% to the cost of construction of infrastructure improvements to build community ownership of the project facilities. However, the capacity of the local government and communities to contribute was limited to 4.7% and 1.8%, respectively. Delayed allocation and availability of counterpart funds for resettlement compensation caused delays during implementation.

Project Number: 43316-012
Project Name: Pakse Urban Environmental Improvement Project
Report Date: