Search

Displaying 1 - 15 of 22

Lesson
Before preparing projects for Central Asia or the Caucasus, ADB should determine if restricting procurement to ADB-member countries will significantly raise the cost of goods and services over unrestricted procurement. For the two railway projects, the least-cost source of rails was nonmember countries, and limiting procurement to ADB member countries raised the cost of rails by more than 150%.

Project Number: 30457-013
Project Name: Railway Rehabilitation Project and Railway Modernization Project [Loans 1631/1773]
Report Date:
Lesson
Loan agreements for projects in Uzbekistan should include a covenant that will avoid unnecessary delays from the contract registration process of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, Investment, and Trade. In each railway project, the ministry’s price verification during the contract registration process unnecessarily delayed procurement. Price verification aims to encourage renegotiation of bid prices when the ministry believes prices are too high.

Project Number: 30457-014
Project Name: Railway Rehabilitation Project and Railway Modernization Project [Loans 1631/1773]
Report Date:
Lesson
Future projects should have an implementation consultant or a construction supervision consultant throughout project implementation. In each railway project, the monthly reports prepared by UTY did not discuss civil works in detail and lacked information, for example, on detailed designs and who developed them, the exact location of rehabilitated sites, and photographs showing progress. ADB’s limited oversight of civil works probably also contributed to resources being temporarily diverted to another project during implementation of the first project.

Project Number: 30457-015
Project Name: Railway Rehabilitation Project and Railway Modernization Project [Loans 1631/1773]
Report Date:
Lesson
The first railway project is a good model for ADB to follow when starting a new program in a country. The first railway project was among the first projects that ADB financed in Uzbekistan. When ADB starts a new program in a country, government officials and others must learn about ADB’s policies, procedures, and requirements, including those regarding safeguards, anti-corruption, and procurement.

Project Number: 30457-016
Project Name: Railway Rehabilitation Project and Railway Modernization Project [Loans 1631/1773]
Report Date:
Lesson
Post-conflict intervention designs. The interventions funded by the TFET were focused on infrastructure development, which was useful and appropriate for the economic recovery process. However, peace in the country must continue. While parallel efforts by the United Nations and other partners are ongoing, ADB project designs could have included softer elements to complement these parallel efforts.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Policy dialogue. Timor-Leste has experienced a series of conflicts since it became independent in 1999. The setting up of a governing administration took time, which is typical for a post-conflict country. During this transition, development partners had a unique opportunity to conduct policy dialogue with the emerging government on issues that create long-term sustainability, especially on infrastructure development, maintenance, and ensuring basic services in rural areas.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
In a post-conflict situation, generally governance suffers. It is admittedly more difficult to implement policies. This leads to issues such as lack of accountability. In the absence of a sound administrative structure, setting up an accountability mechanism can be difficult. This was apparent during the early years immediately after independence of Timor-Leste. However, the need for good governance and for ensuring accountability in all decisions needs to be highlighted during policy dialogues between development partners and the government.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Flexibility in project design. In a post-conflict scenario, there is no certainty of the accuracy of field data, specific nature of requirements, or institutional arrangements before the start of the construction activity. This requires flexibility to be built into the project design, resulting in a project that enables a series of interventions that are customized to the requirements. Such flexibility could be in the form of nature of civil works as well as the scope of rehabilitation activities.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
In the case of Timor-Leste, the flexibility in assistance during Phase 2 could have rehabilitated the roads by upgrading them from the currently unmaintainable condition and setting up a road maintenance planning and implementation system. Similarly, in the power sector, the power plants need to be upgraded and interconnected through a grid. Unless a system of regular maintenance of these power plants is put in place and implemented, the power plants will not be able to improve their service levels.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Developing institutional capacity is crucial for development effectiveness in Timor-Leste. One area where the project had only partial value addition was in developing institutional capacity through continued training of project staff. Although there were several studies undertaken to develop new institutions, Phase 1 did not have any specific capacity development component and could not be expected to do so since there were no institutions in place at appraisal. Phase 2 had on-the-job training, which was a step in the right direction but not sufficient enough.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
ADB has provided the TA for infrastructure project management (footnote 39) for capacity development within the government. Expanding the scope of such TA projects to cover private sector contractors could help build the local industry and enable better implementation of projects. Such capacity development for private road contractors is being undertaken in other countries, such as the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, to strengthen their project implementation capabilities.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Design simpler and realistic projects. Emergency assistance projects, especially post-conflict ones, need to be designed in a way that the outputs can be achieved expeditiously. This requires simpler and more realistic designs. The design of Phase 1 could be seen as complex since it covered three different sectors. Yet given the need for immediate restoration, this could be rationalized as appropriate. Phase 2 was relatively simple and focused on roads only. However, Phase 1 covered the entire country, resulting in high transaction costs.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Design realistic projects with balanced expectations. Post-conflict rehabilitation is a complex process covering all sectors simultaneously. Although there are good intentions to fit in lot of different components in a project due to its emergency nature, the implementation has been found to be difficult—time and resource-intense.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Prioritize the areas of interventions. In a post-conflict context, it is important to prioritize the areas of intervention so that funds are used judiciously. For Phase 1, the areas of interventions were appropriate—roads, power, and port. These are high-priority areas, and the joint assessment mission correctly chose these sectors for funding through the TFET.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Frequent and closer monitoring of project implementation. Both Phase 1 and Phase 2 showed that early and frequent supervision by ADB is crucial to ensuring efficient project implementation. In a post-conflict situation, the government lacks adequate resources, and ADB’s value addition in this area could deliver better results. Para. 126 shows that despite frequent review missions there remained areas for improvement in ADB’s supervision of the project.

Project Number: XXXXX
Project Name: Emergency Infrastructure Rehabilitation Project, Phases 1 and 2
Report Date: