The selection of adjoining provinces in the Central Highlands had several benefits. First, these provinces have a large number of poor ethnic minorities and other residents with low health status and limited access to health services. As such, these areas align with both the government's policy of supporting disadvantaged groups and ADB's overarching objectives of tackling poverty. Ethnic minorities needed continuous targeting as their health status and sociocultural adverse health behaviour warranted project interventions. Second, the selection of adjoining provinces reduced travel times and administrative overheads for project monitoring and supervision. Third, selection of these provinces avoided overlap with other major development partners in the country. On the other hand, the lack of allocative criteria led to unequitable resource distribution among the provinces, though no significant variation in performance was found, as provinces used funding according to their internal technical and absorptive capacity.
Health Care in the Central Highlands Project