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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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Incomplete registration and compliance monitoring and unjustified ceilings on the number of eligible beneficiaries can limit the outreach and transformative potential of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs. Unde the Philippines' CCT, all target beneficiaries and children within 4Ps households should be registered and monitored.

Project Number: 43407-013
Project Name: Social Protection Support Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Enforcement of CCT program conditionalities should be continuously reviewed and improved. Enforcement of health conditionalities under the Philippines' CCT program is hampered by low registration of new births and compounded by manual data collection procedures for compliance verification. The executing agency may need to review program conditions so that the checklist of conditions includes reporting all births and submitting data for all children in the household.

Project Number: 43407-013
Project Name: Social Protection Support Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Monitoring and evaluation is crucial to continually improving program design. ADB has provided valuable support to impact evaluations of the Philippines' CCT program since 2010. These have helped identify progress as well as challenges requiring attention. For example, the lack of impact on children’s immunization rates requires revisiting the health conditionalities for all CCT beneficiary children. Similarly, reported school attendance rates remain high without necessarily being affected by the program.

Project Number: 43407-013
Project Name: Social Protection Support Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Institutional and legal frameworks help ensure program and funding sustainability, continuity across political regimes, adequacy and predictability of benefits, and accountability during budget processes. Importantly, these frameworks should provide sufficient flexibility to allow programs to adapt, particularly during times of crises such as COVID-19, and to improve based on socioeconomic trends. For instance,a key feature of the 4Ps law provides for a mechanism to periodically review and adjust benefit levels.

Project Number: 43407-013
Project Name: Social Protection Support Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Building systems and organizational capacity is critical to the success of social assistance programs. Moving beyond a pilot to a national CCTprogram requires establishing project management structures, robust systems for information management, accountability mechanisms, and significant human resources. Despite impressive growth, the Philippines' CCT program faced challenges as it expanded nationally.

Project Number: 43407-013
Project Name: Social Protection Support Project
Report Date:
Lesson
To support an effective and sustainable exit strategy for beneficiaries, CCTs must strengthen the productive capacity of poor households. With the Philippines CCT law’s 7-year ceiling on duration of family participation,it will be important to communicate clearly with beneficiaries on their co-responsibilities and establish referral pathways.

Project Number: 43407-013
Project Name: Social Protection Support Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Social protection can be integrated with broader digital and financial inclusion. Strengthening social protection payment delivery systems can promote broader financial inclusion goals, allowing poor and vulnerable populations to save, borrow, and better plan consumption and investment decisions. In this way, social protection can be an effective tool not just to reduce poverty and build resilience, but also to promote economic empowerment and social inclusion. This requires expanding IT solutions, digital payment options, and financial literacy training for program beneficiaries.

Project Number: 43407-013
Project Name: Social Protection Support Project
Report Date: