Strengthening Technical and Vocational Education and Training

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. Several memoranda of understanding (MOUs) reported “slow and poor procurement of goods and services”. The MOUs attributed the challenges to “PAG's limited capacity and knowledge” and “poor performance of local suppliers.” When the project ran into procurement problems, ADB had to dedicate human resources to put the project back on track. ADB took remedial action such as holding biweekly troubleshooting conference calls with PAG, helping PAG to recruit additional staff, assigning one of ADB's analysts to support PAG, and fielding four missions instead of two in 2018