Design simpler and realistic projects. Emergency assistance projects, especially post-conflict ones, need to be designed in a way that the outputs can be achieved expeditiously. This requires simpler and more realistic designs. The design of Phase 1 could be seen as complex since it covered three different sectors. Yet given the need for immediate restoration, this could be rationalized as appropriate. Phase 2 was relatively simple and focused on roads only. However, Phase 1 covered the entire country, resulting in high transaction costs. Such transactions costs could have been saved during Phase 2 if the latter had focused on one or two road sections in a specific geographical area and had assisted in complete rehabilitation and upgrading of the road from the subbase. This conclusion is in line with that of a recent evaluation study by the European Commission, which recommended that packaging of disparate projects into a program should be avoided.
Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2