Institutional

Overlooking coordination could lead to project delays. Interagency coordination. The project had a good coordination mechanism within the water resources sector. Interagency coordination is needed when implementing social and environmental safeguards; in removing electricity poles (electricity utilities); in cutting trees (forest departments); and in land allotment, resettlement housing sites, and cash compensation payments (district administrations).

It is good practice to understand the business processes of the executing and implementing agencies during the inception mission and to ensure that these procedures are harmonized in the project administration manual. This practice will help smooth implementation and lessen the likelihood of delays.

The transformative policy, institutional reforms, and student- and teacher-centered approaches are key to the progressive improvement of the upper secondary education (USE) subsector in Cambodia. The dropout rate of 8.0% among science scholarship recipients was low compared with the national average of 18.5% in USE, and science stream students performed better in the grade 12 exam in terms of higher scores compared to their peers in the social science stream.

ADB project teams need to have a realistic understanding of how long it takes host governments to secure internal approvals to avoid delays in completion thatcould impact project performance. Loan effectiveness took place about 5 months after loan signing, some 3 months behind schedule, “due to prolonged government approvals and parliamentary ratification procedures.” This put the project behind schedule almost from the beginning. Subsequent review missions “emphasized the need to accelerate implementation of all planned activities.

Poor quality of local talent can significantly hinder implementation, causing ADB to intensify implementation support to put projects on track. The executing agency asked the international consulting firm “to change six of the national experts to enhance the quality of expertise.” Delays in retaining architects to monitor construction had a knock-on impact on the procurement of civil works and equipment packages. The objective of setting up the Project Administration Group (PAG), among other implementation units, was to delegate project execution to locals, but this did not work.

Focusing on existing social protection programs and systems and making in-depth policy discussions on reforming them contribute to avoiding the creation of ad hoc programs and arrangements or introducing reforms without having in place a solid institutional setup for its implementation. Alignment with the relevant national strategies ensures the government's strong ownership of prior actions and outcomes. Consideration of these two key lessons will strengthen the design and implementation of future similar programs.

Coordination across several government agencies require strong leadership and persistence; given the regular transfer of government officials to other positions and ministries, it is important to set up a scheme for maintaining institutional memory within the executing and implementing agencies throughout program implementation.

Piloting is important to establish the viability and sustainability of novel methologies and approaches. The implementation of pilot schemes for innovative and participatory waste reuse and recycling approaches helped assess the viability and sustainability of the proposed solutions before suggesting these approaches for rollout on a larger scale. The outcomes of the schemes have demonstrated that recyclable waste can be processed community groups and small businesses and put into economic circulation, which leads to th3 generation of new jobs and income.

The program reaffirms the importance of ADB's long-term engagement in local governance reform. Its success can be attributed to policy actions in such areas as revenue generation, budget reform, and enhanced planning processes that were the emphasis of previous ADB programs. New policy reform areas such as Ease of Doing Business arose from dialogue with the government on new priorities.

Subsidiary regulations can have a significant impact. For example, in support of the Ease of Doing Business Act, the various joint memorandum circulars issued by government agencies had an immediate impact.