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Lesson
Benchmarks and indicators are needed to improve urban services delivery and utility performance.

Project Number: 37220-013, 37220-023, 37220-033
Project Name: Sindh Cities Improvement Investment Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Ambitious program designs, usually underpinned by inadequate assessment of the program context and the institutional dynamics and capacities of relevant government agencies, are likely to encounter significant implementation difficulties.

Project Number: 37220-013, 37220-023, 37220-033
Project Name: Sindh Cities Improvement Investment Program
Report Date:
Lesson
An incremental, phased approach to implementing transformational reforms can help reduce political resistance and enhance the sustainability of reforms.

Project Number: 37220-023
Project Name: Sindh Cities Improvement Investment Program - Tranche 1
Report Date:
Lesson
Effective institutional arrangements are critically important to the successful implementation of urban reforms.

Project Number: 37220-023
Project Name: Sindh Cities Improvement Investment Program - Tranche 1
Report Date:
Lesson
Investing in comprehensive, integrated sector packages with a focus on priority cities have a strong impact in achieving urban sector reforms.

Project Number: 37220-023
Project Name: Sindh Cities Improvement Investment Program - Tranche 1
Report Date:
Lesson
It was envisaged that the tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs) would be assisted in offering opportunities to the private sector in the transport, recycling, and composting of solid waste, municipal slaughterhouses, and wastewater treatment plant operations. However, except for outsourcing slaughterhouse operations, no private sector participation was achieved.

Project Number: 23213-013
Project Name: Southern Punjab Basic Urban Services Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The Local Government and Rural Development Department, through the project coordination office (PCO), was the executing agency of the project. However, with limited capacity demonstrated in implementing the project for the first 2 years, PCO management was taken over by staff members deputed from Housing, Urban Development and Public Health Engineering Department, and focus shifted toward infrastructure investments. Sustainability can be better achieved if the organizations that operate services remain fully involved in its design, planning, and implementation stages.

Project Number: 23213-013
Project Name: Southern Punjab Basic Urban Services Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Based on the analysis at completion, one of the major flaws in the devolution process was that tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs) were given additional responsibilities without providing them the additional staff members, resources, power, and regulatory environment to deliver these responsibilities. In the absence of these four key elements, any further investments in urban services managed by TMAs are not expected to deliver sustainable results and service improvements.

Project Number: 23213-013
Project Name: Southern Punjab Basic Urban Services Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Ownership and commitment of the Punjab government toward the Punjab Local Government Ordinance (PLGO), 2001 decreased over the project implementation period. The PLGO 2001 reforms were embedded in the tehsil municipal administration (TMA) selection criteria and were supported through municipal management capacity-building initiatives to ensure sustainability of investments. Due to the lack of political will and weak capacities of the implementing agencies, however, the implementation of the reforms and municipal management activities was marginal.

Project Number: 23213-013
Project Name: Southern Punjab Basic Urban Services Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Delay in acquisition of the required land and award of contracts without implementation of resettlement plans impeded implementation and caused premature loan closure. Efforts are needed to built safeguard capacities within countries to implement and within ADB to supervise, guide, and monitor safeguard compliance. To check against safeguard-related delays, safeguard plans and their implementation should be part of a project readiness filter.

Project Number: 23213-013
Project Name: Southern Punjab Basic Urban Services Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The community participation in design and planning subprojects was minimal. The engagement with communities was mainly through social organizers and some council members, who were not directly related to mainstream implementation of the subproject, which was one of the key reasons for weak participation. Community participation requires their intensive involvement from the design to the implementation stages, through direct interaction with key players responsible for implementation, to build ownership and sustained partnerships.

Project Number: 23213-013
Project Name: Southern Punjab Basic Urban Services Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Alignment with overall reforms: The project only supported implementation of reforms in the participating towns and WASA in line with PLGO 2001 and urban policy actions agreed with the government for the project (para. 53). Ownership and commitment to reforms deteriorated in general and project implementation was adversely affected. Although these risks were identified in the project design, no flexibility was built into the design to respond to these external factors.

Project Number: 37003-013
Project Name: Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement
Report Date:
Lesson
Ensuring quality in complex reform oriented projects: The consultants under the loan were hired through QCBS. The staff costs in the bids were inadequate for quality staff. This hiring process allowed weak firms to bid low and win the bids, without fully appreciating the tasks ahead. The request for proposal for complex sector loans should either be quality-based or include a bid rejection option in case of underbidding in QCBS.

Project Number: 37003-013
Project Name: Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement
Report Date:
Lesson
Provision of optimal environment for change: The project design included community and private sector participation in the delivery of urban services, supported by some concrete small-scale activities. However, the project did not provide clear direction and adequate resources to deliver these activities (para. 46). Flexibility is important in the design of complex loans, but for this flexibility to be used effectively, additional capacity, a guiding framework, and resources should be included in the sector loan, with supporting technical assistance to guide the use of the resources.

Project Number: 37003-013
Project Name: Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement
Report Date:
Lesson
Addressing the fundamentals reforms upfront: Major governance issues of autonomy and incentives to perform, which plagued the key implementing agencies that were the urban service providers, were only captured piecemeal in the policy framework. This allowed these issues that were fundamental for the success of the project to be addressed (or not be addressed) during project implementation. The design also allowed major investment subprojects to be implemented without addressing these fundamental issues.

Project Number: 37003-013
Project Name: Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement
Report Date: