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Lesson
Insufficient analytical underpinnings led to formal rather than substantive compliance with tranche release conditions. Joint undertakings with other donors and RGoB might have strengthened the substantive analysis of policies and the robustness of the dialogue with RGoB. 60 For example, requiring that RGoB formulate an FDI policy, without engaging substantively on the substance of that policy, was not useful. A policy was written and adopted, but a new attempt was being made to formulate a workable policy in 2009.

Project Number: 29243/29243-01/31908
Project Name: Financial Sector Intermediation Facility and Equity Investment in Bhutan National Bank
Report Date:
Lesson
Another lesson is that if ADB brings a private partner into the deal with the aim of facilitating capacity development, it should only go with a strategic investor with relevant banking experience, who will remain as a shareholder for a long time and thus play an active role in the management and corporate governance of an institution. In this particular case, the investor was not actively involved in managing the institution and acted more like a financial than a strategic investor.

Project Number: 29243/29243-01/31913
Project Name: Financial Sector Intermediation Facility and Equity Investment in Bhutan National Bank
Report Date:
Lesson
A small equity investment can have a large impact in the right circumstances, especially if it is supported by TA and policy reforms. Although ADB’s equity investment in BNB was largely effective in achieving its aims, it illustrates that small investments are not easy for ADB to handle within its cost structure.

Project Number: 29243/29243-01/31912
Project Name: Financial Sector Intermediation Facility and Equity Investment in Bhutan National Bank
Report Date:
Lesson
The key problems and constraints of SME access to credit in Bhutan needed to be better understood. Problems included high interest rates, short loan amortization periods, and excessive collateral requirements. The FSIF loan had no effect on these.

Project Number: 29243/29243-01/31911
Project Name: Financial Sector Intermediation Facility and Equity Investment in Bhutan National Bank
Report Date:
Lesson
Women's Market Section (WMS). The project made an effort to include WMSs in all market developments to bring women more into the mainstream of the rural economy. However, women in some areas are conservative and not willing to run shops side-by-side with men. WMSs should only be included in market developments where project appraisal indicates that women are interested and available to participate in running the facilities; otherwise, the resources can be used elsewhere.

Project Number: 31304-013
Project Name: Rural Infrastructure Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Drinking Water in Market Developments. The project has installed on a pilot basis a low-cost piped water supply system for drinking purposes at Haibatpur Growth Center in Jessore district, which is an arsenic-affected area. A water management committee within the market management committee (MMC) is managing the operation and maintenance of the system, and collects user fees. This approach to the supply of low-cost water in a growth center market (GCM) has proven to be feasible and may be replicated in future projects, while taking its shortcomings into account.

Project Number: 31304-013
Project Name: Rural Infrastructure Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Subproject Appraisal Reports. Since SARs were prepared for each upazila, 96 SARs were produced. This was a huge and time consuming task that took almost two years to complete. It is recommended that future projects should produce SARs on the basis of districts or regions rather than upazila. This concept would have reduced the number of reports to 16 if prepared on a district basis or 2 if prepared on a regional basis.

Project Number: 31304-013
Project Name: Rural Infrastructure Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Advanced Procurement Action. Early procurement for contract packages is absolutely essential to enable projects to meet their implementation schedule. In this case, the major civil works contract packages for year 1 were prepared by the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) during the feasibility study before the project consultants were mobilized and the subproject appraisal reports (SARs) were prepared. Early recruitment of the consultants would have improved the performance of the project in the early stages. The recruitment process should be simplified to avoid delays.

Project Number: 31304-013
Project Name: Rural Infrastructure Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Need to avoid including conditions in loans that depend on passing or amending legislation, or seeking high-level approval, such as from the Cabinet. This was the case in the RMC component that sought annual allocations in the budget for road maintenance. Projects that require legal or high-level administrative changes often experience major delays or fail to meet their objectives.

Project Number: 33243-013
Project Name: Road Maintenance and Improvement Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The project team should pay particular attention to selecting the top leadership of assisted institutions to the extent possible, and build in mechanisms to evaluate the performance of VTIs and award good performance to provide incentives. Given the same bureaucratic or external constraints, differences in performance of the VTIs can be attributed largely to differences in the quality of leadership. Furthermore, mechanisms (including incentives) can be established to evaluate and encourage good performance. [Main text, para. 44]

Project Number: 31317-012
Project Name: Basic Skills Development Project
Report Date:
Lesson
A complete package of assistance should be provided to vocational training institutes (VTIs) to ensure the delivery of quality training. Taking into account existing resources, reducing the number of VTIs assisted could have been a better option vis-a-vis thinly spreading available resources to more VTIs. In some VTIs, for instance, a building was constructed or renovated but only minimal equipment was provided.

Project Number: 31317-012
Project Name: Basic Skills Development Project
Report Date:
Lesson
To ensure proper sequencing and smooth coordination between components, the project implementation unit should have been responsible for the overall management of project components. The project provides for both software and hardware assistance as a comprehensive package. GTZ was financing the software side of the project and ADB provides for the hardware support. Since different departments in the Ministry of Labor and Human Resources managed the GTZ and ADB financed components, the sequencing of activities suffered.

Project Number: 31317-012
Project Name: Basic Skills Development Project
Report Date:
Lesson
ADB needs to pay more attention to capacity assessment during inception. The executing agencies had insufficient capacity to carry out procurement, bid evaluation and other processes, resulting in significant delays. This capacity deficit within the executing agencies was not identified during inception. [Main text, paras. 39,45,62]

Project Number: 28025-013
Project Name: Dhaka Power System Upgrade Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Caution is in order in concurring with major changes in project scope. The scope for Part C of the project changed from initiating preparatory work for launching a training and management institute at the Rural Electrification Board - to physically constructing the institute. Its implementation though has suffered from price escalation, scarcity of construction materials, and internal disputes among partners in the contractor's consortium.

Project Number: 28025-013
Project Name: Dhaka Power System Upgrade Project
Report Date: