Overambitious objectives

The framework for a program’s data management system should be put in place before its start to measure the achievement of targets and beneficiaries and (the ambitiousness of goals should be balanced against the availability of data and capacity to quickly augment granular data collection. Although the government has increased its focus on gender equality and has made efforts to strengthen gender data tracking, data disaggregated by sex and age of end recipients were often not available at the time of program preparation and monitoring.

The design and monitoring framework (DMF) and monitoring and reporting mechanism need to be carefully developed at the planning stage. The outcome statement of the TA was not appropriate as it is too narrow and should be more focused on the TA benefits to Maldives. Outcome targets were too ambitious since there were several contributing factors outside the scope of the TA that affected their achievements. With a small country portfolio, unexpected delays in one or two projects will make the target unachievable. Having an outcome indicator at the broader level could help avoid that.

Trade facilitation reforms and national single window (NSW) development are complex undertakings requiring much time to be completed. This project's timelines were very ambitious with regard to the NSW component given that it required institutional and regulatory reforms; business process reengineering across multiple government agencies; as well as design, development, and integration of the SWIS.

Establishing a comprehensive coordination unit for rural health transformation is a gargantuan and complex task requiring dedicated programming and targeted resources. A feature of the intended design, where the project support unit would be integrated into the Department of Health (DOH) to establish a comprehensive coordination unit for rural health transformation, was not realized. The ambition was relevant, and the government’s capability to manage projects to improve primary health care and coordinate partner programs should be strengthened.

Adequate consideration of the legal and administrative contexts of projects and the need for participatory democratic processes is a must to ensure that the timelines for achieving compliance with tariff-related reform covenants are not ambitious, as the case with this project.

Targeting core reforms is crucial to maximizing program impact. A few policy actions that are critical to improving the effectiveness and efficacy of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan could have been prioritized, rather than focusing on privatizing public sector enterprises, which can be part of a future reform program dedicated to state-owned enterprise reforms.

Policy actions should not include legislative businesses that require the approval of Parliament, which is beyond the executive branch’s control.

Setting a high job placement target to qualify for the final milestone payment can can create a negative incentive for training providers to inflate the training costs so as to cover for all their costs regardless of whether or not they meet the job placement target. This lesson, arising from a similar project in Nepal, was heeded by the tranche 1 project that lowered the job placement target from 70% to 60% to ensure that the training providers do not to lose their focus on job placement.

Replacing higher-level skills courses with in-demand entry-level courses can raise the job placement performance of projects. Industry associations initially expected a strong demand for mid- or higher-level technical skills; however, job placements from these courses were more challenging than those from more entry-level courses. Therefore, the outcome indicator related to increased shares of higher-level skills was not increased, and was instead pegged at just about 18%l, which proved more realistic.

A holistic approach, which can lead to overambitious scope and targets, needs to be carefully weighed during the project design stage. This program and its numerous outputs adopted a holistic approach, which might now seem overly ambitious, particularly for the first urban transport undertaking in Ulaanbaatar. A phased approach could have been considered to focus resources on clearly identified priorities and to develop capacity.