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Lesson
The strategic oversight of funds is enhanced when their governance structure includes some form of third-party engagement. The original Board paper outlined the governance structure of CCF and included at its apex ADB and external financing partners, whose function would be to provide strategic direction to the CCF and to meet ADB for annual consultations and to review progress, administration, and the annual work program. Since there are no external financing partners, ADB sits alone at the apex of the governance structure.

Project Number: No PN
Project Name: Climate Change Fund, 2008–2019
Report Date:
Lesson
Technical assistance with a narrow focus, immediate policy relevance, and carried out with national champions with financial and/or planning authority was key to the successful integration of climate technologies in country investment plans. Careful and realistic planning is required for the production and dissemination of outputs, since this involves multiple institutions within a given timeframe.

Project Number: No PN
Project Name: Climate Change Fund, 2008–2019
Report Date:
Lesson
Institutional capacity development on climate change in ADB’s DMCs requires long-term engagement. Just over half of CCF resources went toward capacity development. The lack of basic climate data, technical expertise, and qualified local staff in many DMCs means that some processes, especially baseline studies, vulnerability assessments, and cost–benefit analysis of mitigation and adaptation measures, have to be adjusted to reflect realities on the ground.

Project Number: No PN
Project Name: Climate Change Fund, 2008–2019
Report Date:
Lesson
Clear delineation of country activities with transparent funding allocations in cross-border RCI TA projects involving several countries helps smooth implementation and increase project success. The transaction costs in cross-border RCI TA projects tend to be high both in terms of resources and the time required to achieve agreement among stakeholders in the participating countries. It takes much longer to negotiate and agree to a common proposal in a cross-border RCI TA project than in a usual TA project.

Project Number: No PN
Project Name: Regional Cooperation and Integration Fund, 2007–2019
Report Date:
Lesson
Active engagement of national stakeholders and ADB resident missions from the outset helps improve ownership and project success. The likelihood of success is greater when an RCIF TA project is designed with genuine consultation with concerned line ministries, national agencies, the private sector (if relevant), and ADB resident missions. Active engagement of in-country stakeholders helps ADB to identify binding constraints and solutions, and to internalize implementation challenges at the TA design stage. This makes clear the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder.

Project Number: No PN
Project Name: Regional Cooperation and Integration Fund, 2007–2019
Report Date:
Lesson
Policy-based loans should ensure adequate support for reform implementation. Accompanying TA would help clients meet key program targets, such as implementation of the IGF and medium-term budgeting. Policy-based loan design should ensure that TA findings are translated into actions. With the MFEM’s preference for policy-based lending, loan design should ensure strong links between TA and the program being supported.

Project Number: 42503-013, 42503-023
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program - Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Policy-based loans are useful instruments for aligning donor activities and securing donor participation. As noted above, donors provide a significant amount of resources, including for capacity building. Various modalities of donor participation and coordination could be explored in the design of policy-based loans, such as inclusion of donor commitment and funding of specific programs and projects (especially in the social sectors, where donors are active) and TA (notably in PFM).

Project Number: 42503-013, 42503-023
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program - Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Addressing multiple development challenges in a single operation results in complex program design that is not appropriate where capacity is a key constraint. Narrowing the thematic focus (e.g., infrastructure governance reform) could result in a more coherent program.

Project Number: 42503-013, 42503-023
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program - Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Institutional reform requires well-defined and attributable outcomes. Many of the milestones for institutional reform are process related, e.g., cabinet endorsement of the IGF. The outcomes from the institutional reforms are not well-defined, e.g., higher economic and social rates of return. There is a need for closer monitoring and evaluation to determine whether the reforms achieved their objectives. The theory of change and intended results should be well articulated at the outset.

Project Number: 42503-013, 42503-023
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program - Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Delays in the establishment of a credit information bureau was also partly a failure of analysis. Costs were underestimated and the problems were not fully understood. Founding a CIB in Bhutan is not only a problem of coordination among the lending institutions. The challenge is more fundamental, with the essential problem being the poor data systems and practices of the lending institutions. Substantive analysis at the design stage of the FSIF would probably have identified this issue and allowed ADB and RGoB to address it earlier.

Project Number: 29243/29243-01/31909
Project Name: Financial Sector Intermediation Facility and Equity Investment in Bhutan National Bank
Report Date:
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
The failure of interest rate liberalization was also partly a failure of analysis. Removing overt administrative control of interest rates may make little difference to prevailing rates and practices if there is little competition between lenders because of the sector’s oligopolistic and closely held structure. Several factors made it unlikely that simple deregulation of rate setting would be conclusive.

Project Number: 29243/29243-01/31910
Project Name: Financial Sector Intermediation Facility and Equity Investment in Bhutan National Bank
Report Date: