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Lesson
A flexible approach to respond to evolving priorities is important in maintaining the relevance of a policy-based loan (PBL) program. At the beginning of this program, further development in the oil and gas sector was a priority. However, during the 8-year program period, the government’s priority shifted to energy transition. Some of the policy actions in subprogram 3 were revised accordingly, in consultation with cofinancing partners, to reflect this development.

Project Number: 49043-001, 49043-002, 49043-003
Project Name: Sustainable and Inclusive Energy Program 
Report Date:
Lesson
Sustained engagement is critical for the successful completion of reform programs. This program benefited from the government’s strong ownership of sector reform. However, it also made the reform program susceptible to changes in policy directions and strategies, especially with changes in political leadership. As an example, renewable energy tariff mechanisms changed multiple times during the program period.

Project Number: 49043-001, 49043-002, 49043-003
Project Name: Sustainable and Inclusive Energy Program 
Report Date:
Lesson
Government leadership and coordination are key to successful sector reforms. The main reason for the delay in completing subprogram 3 was because of the time needed to complete the coordination for a presidential regulation that required more interministerial coordination and agreements than a ministerial regulation. While this additional requirement makes this action more irreversible, overcoming the coordination challenge was not without difficulty. Government leadership for careful coordination was critical in completing this policy action.

Project Number: 49043-001, 49043-002, 49043-003
Project Name: Sustainable and Inclusive Energy Program 
Report Date:
Lesson
The results-based lending (RBL) modality provides flexibility to adjust targets adversely affected by unforessen adverse events such as COVID-19. During 2020–2022, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the demand for electricity, lowering the State Electricity Company's (PLN) revenues and creating uncertainty in its investment plans. Sourcing equity financing and implementing ongoing projects within PLN became difficult under such conditions and adjustments were needed in scope and time targets of ongoing works.

Project Number: 50016-001
Project Name: Sustainable Energy Access in Eastern Indonesia—Electricity Grid Development Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Budget approval and procurement of new technologies being piloted could take time and cause implementation delays; when installed, rigorous monitoring of the performance of the new technologies is required to ascertain benefits and draw lessons from the pilot experience. In implementing the four pilot smart grid projects, substantial delays occurred due to the lengthy budget approval process and the procurement requirement of open competitive bidding while allowing international bidder participation.

Project Number: 50016-001
Project Name: Sustainable Energy Access in Eastern Indonesia—Electricity Grid Development Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Misperceptions about the new technologies being can adversely affect their adoption. A misperception among postpaid customers that prepaid meters would lead to increased electricity costs resulted in lower-than-expected migration postpaid to prepaid meters. In addition, the full benefits of smart meters are currently not being achieved by either PLN or the business consumers because the smart meters are currently being used only to read meters remotely and at times even this is not possible due to the weak communication infrastructure in some areas.

Project Number: 50016-001
Project Name: Sustainable Energy Access in Eastern Indonesia—Electricity Grid Development Program
Report Date:
Lesson
The cost categories required to be reported in the audited program financial statements (APFS) need to align with the categorization at appraisal so as not to cause problems in reporting. PLN faced difficulty in estimating the financing charges during implementation at appraisal stage. In addition, PLN raised a concern on the disclosure provision regarding APFS due to confidentiality requirements. The cost categories reported in the APFS were not aligned with the categorization used at appraisal, due to which changes to reporting formats were needed.

Project Number: 50016-001
Project Name: Sustainable Energy Access in Eastern Indonesia—Electricity Grid Development Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Adequate safeguard reporting arrangements with frequency and report templates included in the construction contracts and technical guidance on the implementation of safeguard actions can strengthen project compliance to ADB safeguard requirements. The introduction of program actions through the RBL programs has improved PLN staff's awareness and capacity concerning ADB safeguard requirements. The grievance redress mechanism was found to be an area for further improvement during the evaluation of the previous RBL in Sumatra.

Project Number: 50016-001
Project Name: Sustainable Energy Access in Eastern Indonesia—Electricity Grid Development Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Strong collaboration between the executing agency and the land office from the project planning stage is critical to minimize delays in land acquisition completion and land ownership update.

Project Number: 41074-013
Project Name: West Kalimantan Power Grid Strengthening Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The need for proper arrangements to meet customary ceremony requirements, which can cause delays, should be anticipated in future project designs. For example, because a sacred cemetery to the community was identified at the construction site of a project package, a customary ceremony was needed and conducted to meet the local community's religious requirements.

Project Number: 41074-013
Project Name: West Kalimantan Power Grid Strengthening Project
Report Date:
Lesson
A draft proposal on income restoration and rehabilitation programs need to be prepared along with the safeguard plans to avoid delays in safeguards implementation. In this project, contractors of four packages should have deployed fulltime environmental and occupational safety and health personnel to raise awareness and enforce the safeguard requirements for subcontractors and workers.

Project Number: 41074-013
Project Name: West Kalimantan Power Grid Strengthening Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Proper location of the project management unit is crucial to smooth implementation. Daily coordination and supervision were initially undertaken across two distant sites: the construction implementation unit (UIP) in East Kalimantan and the project implementation consultant in West Kalimantan. This caused coordination difficulties on implementation issues arising from the field. In 2016, UIP West Kalimantan was made in charge of project management. This improved project management and coordination, making implementation smoother for the rest of the project duration.

Project Number: 41074-013
Project Name: West Kalimantan Power Grid Strengthening Project
Report Date:
Lesson
When the minimum amount of disbursement needs to be established for some administrative reasons from ADB's co-financiers, it is beneficial to set it at the lowest possible level to enable financiers to respond flexibly to the disbursement needs on the ground. The Agence Française de Développement (AFD) required the minimum amount of $5 million to process disbursements, except for the first disbursement of $300,000, while the ADB did not impose such a threshold.

Project Number: 41074-013
Project Name: West Kalimantan Power Grid Strengthening Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Indonesia needs better interoperability among the tiers of its government. In relation to public health, the effectiveness of the government’s initial response to the pandemic was limited by conflicting approaches. The lack of coordination within government; as evidenced particularly by conflicting public messages around social distancing especially in the early stages of the pandemic. These coordination issues were more apparent in the vertical relations between tiers of government than at inter-ministerial levels.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
It is important to target monitoring at end-state outcomes. Due to the lockdowns and mobility restrictions; early difficulty in the speed of PEN disbursements was unavoidable. Although the government recognized the need for urgent rollout; poor infrastructure raised the risk of leakage through corruption and led to a slower and more cautious approach than would otherwise have been optimal. A lesson to be drawn from the experience involves the need to target monitoring activities at end-state outcomes.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date: