Search

Displaying 1 - 15 of 50

Lesson
The country engagement framework (CEF) worked effectively for the CARES program and may be used for continued engagement and dialogue with the government on post-CARES follow-on work. Dialogue with key stakeholders from the private sector and civil society played an invaluable role in: (i) providing government with firsthand accounts of the challenges faced by the sectors from the evolving conditions under the pandemic; and (ii) establishing a direct feedback loop to the government on how policies were translating on the ground. The dialogue was consistent with ADB’s CEF in Cambodia.

Project Number: 54195-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Stronger coordination between the national and subnational levels is necessary to ensure a coordinated approach to implementation, reporting, and monitoring. More could be done to strengthen vertical and horizontal coordination between the relevant government agencies for improved outcomes.

Project Number: 54195-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Data collection, which took longer than anticipated under the CARES program, need to be expedited in future emergency responses. Data collection challenges experienced under CARES included (i) competing priorities, (ii) need to cover many different agencies, and (iii) need to collect data remotely. In some cases, the same dataset was collected from multiple sources and agencies, necessitating cross checking and verification and requiring considerable time and resources.

Project Number: 54195-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
An integrated approach to sustainable recovery is necessary to enhance the development impact of the CARES program. While the CPRO’s primary purpose was to deliver emergency assistance to support the government’s pandemic response, it also supported overall measures to keep the government on track in pursuing structural reforms that would enable a sustainable recovery from the pandemic. Such measures cohere around an integrated approach to meet Cambodia’s medium- and long-term recovery needs, including an improved investment environment and sound fiscal governance.

Project Number: 54195-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
A government-led program with coordinated support from development partners, is effective in enabling a rapid, timely, and highly relevant emergency response to pandemics. ADB’s COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support (CARES) program proved efficacious in channeling support for the Cambodian government to address the adverse social, health, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Project Number: 54195-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
It is important to target monitoring at end-state outcomes. Due to the lockdowns and mobility restrictions; early difficulty in the speed of PEN disbursements was unavoidable. Although the government recognized the need for urgent rollout; poor infrastructure raised the risk of leakage through corruption and led to a slower and more cautious approach than would otherwise have been optimal. A lesson to be drawn from the experience involves the need to target monitoring activities at end-state outcomes.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
The urgency of the lending produced outcomes that, while unavoidable, are nevertheless instructive. For example, target setting was difficult because the contours of the pandemic were fluid. Liaising with the government was also challenging. The timeline for initial response was tight, and ADB worked with a small number of government teams in the interest of speed. This concentrated approach to planning was complicated by the pandemic affecting government officials’ health and well-being personally.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
The program reinforced the need for flexible targeting in pandemic situations. The Indonesian government was quick to recognize the tension between sustaining economic activity and minimizing the spread of disease through physical distancing and quarantine. At times; the National Recovery Program (PEN) was modified to strike a better balance. For example; the government increased its support for ultra-microenterprises midway through the program; pivoting its assistance program to more than 1 million street vendors who were economically displaced by restrictions on mobility.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Difficulties with data accentuated problems that included health targets, such as the vaccine rollout. Although testing rates had reached World Health Organization targets by August 2021, it was not clear that the national average testing rate applied uniformly at the provincial level.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
The crisis amplified the adverse, preexisting, and self-reinforcing relationship between public health and economic outcomes. This relationship should remain at the forefront of ADB’s engagement with Indonesia. COVID-19 takes a higher toll on individuals who suffer from stunting—a disease that is prevalent in Indonesia and closely associated with poverty.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Indonesia needs better interoperability among the tiers of its government. In relation to public health, the effectiveness of the government’s initial response to the pandemic was limited by conflicting approaches. The lack of coordination within government; as evidenced particularly by conflicting public messages around social distancing especially in the early stages of the pandemic. These coordination issues were more apparent in the vertical relations between tiers of government than at inter-ministerial levels.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
It is important to digitalize government services in times of crisis. This effort is best pursued through collaboration with the private sector in Indonesia. The collaboration can strengthen the country's defense against future outbreaks and improve the targeting of social assistance. Digitalization including ithe financial sector should remain a focal point of ADB’s policy dialogue with Indonesia.

Project Number: 54139-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Challenges encountered in the implementation of the COVID-19 Rapid Response Program highlight concerns that ADB need to address in future similar projects.

Project Number: 54174-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Rapid Response Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Allocating dedicated technical assistance resources to support government compliance with ADB requirements, notably those related to Monitoring and evaluation and Gender, is important.

Project Number: 54174-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Rapid Response Program
Report Date:
Lesson
ADB's long standing engagement in the country, especially in the health and public finance sectors and in fiscal and macroeconomic policy developed its readiness to respond effectively and quickly. The One ADB approach and the application of the streamlined business processes under the CPRO policy also worked well for Mongolia, as it clearly demonstrated that cutting several bureaucratic layers in the approval process does not necessarily compromise the quality of the end product.

Project Number: 54174-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Rapid Response Program
Report Date: