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Lesson
Incorporating nature-based solutions in flood and drought risk management projects, as appropriate, will enhance project outcomes. The project adopted a holistic approach to reducing flood and drought risks by incorporating multiple infrastructure options, such as embankments, roads, drainage channels, navigation, and pumping stations, together with an early warning system. Not relying on just one type of infrastructure added value by delivering better project benefits.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Advance actions, supported by retroactive financing arrangements, can help minimize or avoid startup delays. The project faced start-up delays in both countries. It took more than two years from project effectiveness in each country for the first civil works contracts to be awarded. Recruitment of project implementation consultants, preparation of bidding documents, and preparation of the detailed designs were accomplished only after the project effectiveness. Such start-up delays could have

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Clarity on implementation roles and responsibilities and consistent collection and monitoring of Gender-disaggregated data are key to the successful execution of the project Gender action plan (GAP). Gender trainings at inception stage provided clarity on the roles and responsibilities of consultants and implementing agency staff. The well-defined division of labor provided a strong kickstart to the implementation of the GAP. Integration of sex-disaggregated data collection into the system enabled reliable Monitoring and evaluation of GAP progress throughout the project.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Participation fosters strong beneficiary ownership of projects. This project encouraged the participation of local communities and other stakeholders from the planning stage and throughout implementation. This active participation enhanced project ownership by the beneficiaries. As revealed by the post completion survey, the project has retained this community support.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Timely orientation and training of relevant stakeholders on social safeguards will help avoid related difficulties and problems. All entitled households were compensated according to the updated resettlement plans. However, detailed measurement survey errors and mistakes in implementing the voluntary land donation resulted in some payments being made after the commencement of construction work. A corrective action plan approved by ADB was subsequently implemented and all payments were completed.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
A thorough needs assessment is necessary to align the livelihood restoration training programs to the needs of severely affected households (SAHs) and so increase their uptake of the programs. Only a few SAHs attended the livelihood restoration programs designed to support them. The opportunity cost in terms of farmers’ time was high either because the SAHs were involved in more rewarding economic activities, or the trainings did not respond to their needs.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
More effort toward improving cooperation on regional public goods will strengthen the value addition of future regional projects. Cooperation between the two countries during implementation was limited. More inter-country activities toward strengthening cooperation on regional public goods such as early warning systems, flood and drought management control, joint missions to share country experiences, and knowledge sharing during project implementation would be useful in future regional cooperation projects.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Incorporation into the project design of cost-sharing arrangements with irrigation water users broadens the scope for promoting project sustainability and improving related approaches and practices. In the Lao PDR, forming a water users’ group and assigning it the responsibility of collecting water charges is an important step toward project sustainability. However, this was not fully integrated into the project design and no relevant output Indicators were included in the design and monitoring framework.

Project Number: 40190-023
Project Name: Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risk Management and Mitigation Project
Report Date:
Lesson
LPGs can be a conduit to share experiences, exchange knowledge, and gain access to inputs and improved market opportunities and prices. Unfortunately, the NRSLLDP was rather short-sighted and did not seek to develop groups to access or provide benefits to farmers throughout the production chain (from inputs, to husbandry, to selling). The project also dropped the access-to-market component.

Project Number: 35297-013
Project Name: Northern Region Sustainable Livelihoods Through Livestock Development Project (A Joint Evaluation)
Report Date:
Lesson
The transition to commercial agriculture requires extensive training and empowerment of smallholder farmers. The NRSLLDP aimed to provide farmers with animals to be integrated into their semi-subsistence livelihoods. These additional animals were stores of wealth that were sold occasionally to smooth consumption (e.g., school fees) or support other investments (e.g., motorbikes). With a commercialized approach, the focus is on maximizing a stream of income over a sustained period. This will require substantial changes in the production, marketing, selling, and reinvesting cycle.

Project Number: 35297-013
Project Name: Northern Region Sustainable Livelihoods Through Livestock Development Project (A Joint Evaluation)
Report Date:
Lesson
The move of smallholder farmers toward commercialization requires tailored infrastructure. The NRSLLDP, through the VIF, supported CDD-related infrastructure (such as village meeting halls) at the provincial, district, and local levels. Livestock development and commercialization endeavors, on the other hand, will require new infrastructure to address impediments such as access to water, animal shelters, medicinal supplies, cold-chain, access roads, and market infrastructure.

Project Number: 35297-013
Project Name: Northern Region Sustainable Livelihoods Through Livestock Development Project (A Joint Evaluation)
Report Date:
Lesson
Sustainable access to savings and credit is essential. In the future, savings and credit instruments should be designed around actual farmer needs in terms of timing, amount, duration and repayment and collateral requirements. A key decision for IFAD, ADB, and the government will be to agree on a partner—for example, the Bank of Laos—to implement the rural finance component of the NSLCP transparently and professionally.

Project Number: 35297-013
Project Name: Northern Region Sustainable Livelihoods Through Livestock Development Project (A Joint Evaluation)
Report Date:
Lesson
The community-driven development approach is effective. Although it seems self-evident, this fundamental lesson is often overlooked and needs to be reiterated. Community involvement in planning and responsibility for O&M is a practical and cost-effective way of managing such small-scale systems. The government-enabled community ownership and capacity building approach employed by the project will be useful in other efforts to scale up agricultural development, for example in improving rural health, water supply and sanitation, and education.

Project Number: 34188-013
Project Name: Northern Community-Managed Irrigation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Sustainable O&M and water provision are crucial. Sustainable O&M that guarantees water provision is an incentive for farmers to remain members of WUAs. Farmers tend to withdraw from WUAs if their fields do not receive adequate water flows. Without water delivery to their fields, there was no incentive for farmers to work on land conversion and therefore some refused to invest their resources in converting undeveloped land to paddy fields, which would have increased the irrigated area under the project.

Project Number: 34188-013
Project Name: Northern Community-Managed Irrigation Sector Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Irrigation infrastructure should be built to last. Frequent damage to irrigation facilities caused by flooding and landslides is a big threat to the sustainability of infrastructure improvements. Considering the poor watershed management in the areas surrounding subprojects and incompatible land uses (e.g., hilly land corn farming above the irrigated rice fields), the construction of irrigation infrastructure needs to improve. Preventive and protective measures need to be taken to guard against recurring intense rainfalls and extreme weather events.

Project Number: 34188-013
Project Name: Northern Community-Managed Irrigation Sector Project
Report Date: