Gender

It is crucial to systemize the collection and dissemination of gender-disaggregated data to facilitate the conduct of gender analysis and mitigate women’s vulnerability through more effective targeting of state resource allocation. A substantial number of performance indicators under this program had specific gender targets, which ensured that the government delivered on its commitment to gender equity and gender action plans. This is important because women are usually disproportionately affected by the impacts of crises.

Institutional arrangements to implement mandatory safeguard polices and reporting systems and gender action plans need to be established in the initial stages of the project. This is to avoid potential delays which could adversely impact project adherence to social and environmental safeguards and gender equality results. Adequate human, rechnical, and budgetary resources and strict monitoring by the PMU and ADB are required to ensure compliance.

Collection of both quantitative and qualitative data on gender impacts need to be incorporated in the design of future community engagement initiatives. Such data should provide indications on how and to what degree the initiative reduces women's time poverty, improves their well-being, and boosts their ability to engage in productive activities.

Essential infrastructure and services can positively impact gender equity when designed to address the specific needs and responsibilities of women. This project contributed significant time savings for rural women by releasing them from the burden of fetching water,. Extra time provided them the opportunity to redirect their efforts to economically and socially productive tasks, spending time with family, and leisure activities.

Early identification of the need for minor changes in gender and other indicators and aligning them with the performance indicators in the design and monitoring framework (DMF) strengthen the relevance of the gender action plan and other pertinent project component.

The value addition of mainstreaming gender equality in terms of capacity building and awareness raising, and ensuring the participation of women, maximizes project benefits for women. It gives them the opportunity to participate in activities related to urban and water sectors and to develop skills that will increase their livelihood and income-generating opportunities

There is a need to provide employability training and support to enhance the employment prospects of women even in non-skilled jobs. During project implementation, many employment positions were created, primarily benefiting ethnic minorities, including minority women. These positions mainly involved infrastructure work with lower technical skill requirements and cleaning work. While these opportunities were valuable, experience from the project highlighted the need for employability training and support to these groups.

Addressing specific risks and impacts affecting women in disaster situations can make a tangible difference for women and vulnerable groups in and beyond the disaster context. Among the approaches shown viable are enabling the participation of women and other vulnerable groups in planning and decision-making, ensuring that resilience efforts benefit them, and making disaster responses more responsive to their needs.

Designing a project with an intention to conduct an impact evaluation can lead to a more conscious effort to design and establish a robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system where data can be available for such impact assessment. Additionally, having gender targets can help influence the M&E design to be gender inclusive.

Basing the reporting requirements on the monitoring systems of the government’s own response plan and providing dedicated assistance for monitoring and evaluation will help reduce the burden of the government in meeting the reporting requirements of massive budget support, pandemic response programs such as the CPRO. Budget support mechanisms are relatively new for the borrower, as most development assistance is delivered as project funding or through technical assistance.