Municipal Services Development Project and Municipal Services Development Project Phase 2

Allocations for capacity building components need to be maintained. Discussions and interviews with MDF staff and municipal governments during the evaluation mission pointed to the need for further capacity building of MDF and municipal governments. This was one of the objectives of the projects. The projects should not have reallocated funds from the capacity development and training cost category to civil works even if other donors were providing similar assistance; ADB and other development partners could have coordinated closely to ensure that their training programs were complementary and did not duplicate each other. ADB could have used the funds to train local government staff, in addition to technical staff, consultants, and contractors on procurement processes, new road building techniques, and supervision. Arrangements to retain trained staff at least for the project duration (including incentives), could be included in future projects, ADB should continue investing in capacity building for local human resources (consultants, contractors, technical staff) to help ensure that central and local governments will have the skills to maintain the outputs after the project ends.