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Lesson
Interventions to strengthen sector resilience need to be broadened to improve system readiness for future challenges to learning continuity. After the 2015 earthquake, significant effort was directed towards improving school sector resilience against disasters triggered by natural hazards and climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted new challenges that can impinge on learning continuity, with disproportionate effects on students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds and deprived communities.

Project Number: 49424-001
Project Name: Supporting School Sector Development Plan
Report Date:
Lesson
Do not propose establishment of a new business continuity fund during crisis. The business continuity fund was established during the crisis. Actual usage was far less compared with existing instruments for concessional lending and refinancing, as operationalization took time. Unless such a fund can be established on time, proposing a new fund during a crisis should be avoided when good instruments are available.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Quick and flexible budget support is essential during times of crisis. The timely availability of the ADB CPRO support greatly contributed to mitigating the impact of the pandemic, particularly for low-income countries and countries in vulnerable situations. Availability of such an instrument is highly relevant for a country in times of crisis.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Harness the role of community-based organizations for inclusiveness. Community-based organizations (CBOs) played an active role in implementing the PMEP, such as facilitating information dissemination in the community, collecting applications from interested unemployed individuals, and connecting them to ward offices. Similarly, CBOs helped the government in identifying poor and vulnerable people as recipients of its food distribution efforts and contributed to addressing food needs during the crisis.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Avoid assuming policy changes when setting targets in a crisis. The program design assumed that coordination of all government-subsidized employment would be transferred to the employment service centers established in each local government under the Prime Minister Employment Program (PMEP). Because of the impact of the crisis, this transfer did not happen and the PMEP was unable to achieve the target. A target set during a crisis should not assume a policy change.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Comprehensive and disaggregated enterprise-level data are needed to effectively support micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in times of crisis. The absence of a real-time disaggregated financial data collection system at the beneficiary level made it difficult to timely track the status of business recovery of affected MSMEs. The dataset collected and used in reports on MSME lending did not include comprehensive disaggregated enterprise-level data from the start, making it impossible to assess the inclusiveness of the concessional lending.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Data interoperability facilitates beneficiary targetting in times of crisis. Difficulty in consolidating data between federal, provincial, and local-level governments and between sectors affected program implementation and progress monitoring. While Nepal’s social security programs each identify and register beneficiaries, there is no central register for poor and vulnerable populations. Hence, the ward officials identified food support beneficiaries, which led to implementation challenges.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Purposeful selection of outcome Indicators that are easily and regularly monitored is critical in crisis response projects. There is a high level of uncertainty surrounding the duration and impact of a crisis. Thus, choosing outcome Indicators that provide timely and crucial information on the progress of the crisis and the impact of policy measures can help manage a crisis, as it allows to quickly introduce new measures when the situation worsens.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
This validation also offers this lesson: The TA memo provides a lesson (although it was not reflected in the TCR lessons) regarding the shift in scope, "In light of the ongoing transition to federalism, which aims to devolve the responsibilities for the agriculture sector to the subnational government levels (provincial and municipal), the consultations at the subnational level have become critical not only for the program design, but also to assess the most feasible implementation arrangements…The need to consult with the subnational government offices has not received sufficient atte

Project Number: 48218-007
Project Name: Support for Value Chain Development under the Nepal Agriculture Development Strategy
Report Date:
Lesson
The TCR lesson reflects on the need to engage with the stakeholders in the project design process. However, there is no mention of whether the stakeholders were consulted again when the output indicators changed, and some market corridors were dropped. When the project scope changes significantly, it is a good practice to revisit previously consulted stakeholders to update them of the need to change the targets and incorporate their feedback.

Project Number: 48218-007
Project Name: Support for Value Chain Development under the Nepal Agriculture Development Strategy
Report Date:
Lesson
Agreed. Lesson might be rephrased as: Wide stakeholder consultations (with private sector, subject matter experts, and the government) enabled identification of critical reforms, particularly on food safety, an area where this TA linked with public health.

Project Number: 48218-007
Project Name: Support for Value Chain Development under the Nepal Agriculture Development Strategy
Report Date:
Lesson
Agreed. A useful lesson is the importance of partnerships with the client to ensure buy-in and follow through, and to tailor to additional capacity building demands from the DMCs

Project Number: 47146-001
Project Name: Macroeconomic Modelling for Improved Economic Assessment
Report Date:
Lesson
Another lesson could be that regional conferences and study tours can also be a useful way to engage stakeholders, rather than relying on a one-way flow of information through dissemination of knowledge products.

Project Number: 48206-001
Project Name: Promoting Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (Phase 2)
Report Date:
Lesson
The validation agrees with the TCR lesson on the importance of building ownership of in-country stakeholders.

Project Number: 48206-001
Project Name: Promoting Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (Phase 2)
Report Date:
Lesson
For regional TAs, it is important to engage both regional stakeholders (such as SASEC), as well as to work in tandem with local stakeholders. Also, insights emerging from fact-finding missions are a useful means to undertake in-country consultations and engage local stakeholders.

Project Number: 45419-001
Project Name: SASEC Subregional Energy Efficiency Initiative
Report Date: