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Lesson
The design and monitoring frameworks (DMFs) of the COVID-19 Pandemic Response Option (CPRO) extracted aspects of the government’s response plan that were important to ADB and restricted the number of indicators and targets in order not to burden the government. However, this made demonstrating outcome-level achievement difficult because it relies too much on one or two indicators and targets (weak horizontal logic) and is narrowly and inadequately supported by a minimal number of outputs (weak vertical logic).

Project Number: 54178-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Rapid Response Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Guidance for completing CPRO DMFs underscored the dynamic nature of a crisis operation and the need to be prepared to strengthen, amend or add DMF indicators during implementation. The fact that this was not followed reflects a built-in lack of flexibility with DMFs (and perhaps the difficulty of making changes in accordance with existing Project Administration Instructions).

Project Number: 54178-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Rapid Response Program
Report Date:
Lesson
For the gender action plan, indicators need to be designed to require reporting of baseline and latest data disaggregated by sex for evidence that the practice exists. In this project, indicators such as “MOH public information on drug safety including rapid alert system improved by 2014 (data on persons affected by unsafe drugs are sex-disaggregated)” and “minutes of community meetings and attendance lists were disaggregated by sex” were reported without evidence of sex-disaggregated data.

Project Number: 41243-012
Project Name: Fourth Health Sector Development Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Determining and improving the effectiveness of large and complex projects are far more complicated than measuring progress against the indicators in the design and monitoring framewrok (DMF). The emphasis on quantitative measures, even if well considered, could result in displacing goals and/or inaccurately representing project success or failure. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Implementation timelines, some DMF targets were unrealistic. The project provided for formative evaluations but they were not closely coordinated with the DMF.

Project Number: 41509-013
Project Name: Rural Primary Health Services Delivery Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Specificity of intended outcome is essential to enable programming, innovation, and cycles of project improvement. The project’s outcomes were broadly defined and lacked clear pathways detailing how the outputs would interact with each other and achieve the outcomes. The vagueness is likely part of the reason that the design had significant gaps and flawed assumptions on how the activities would lead to the intended outcomes.

Project Number: 41509-013
Project Name: Rural Primary Health Services Delivery Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The green campus policy could align more closely with climate change mitigation and adaptation practices with measurable and quantifiable indicators so that the amount of energy saved and emissions reduced could be reportable and verifiable. Since the green campus concept was already incorporated at an output level in the design and monitoring framework, more specifications could have been provided at the project design stage, rather than just the formulation of campus policy.

Project Number: 46047-002
Project Name: Guangxi Nanning Vocational Education Development Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Basing the reporting requirements on the monitoring systems of the government’s own response plan and providing dedicated assistance for monitoring and evaluation will help reduce the burden of the government in meeting the reporting requirements of massive budget support, pandemic response programs such as the CPRO. Budget support mechanisms are relatively new for the borrower, as most development assistance is delivered as project funding or through technical assistance.

Project Number: 54179-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Fiscal Response Program
Report Date:
Lesson
An appropriate Implementation arrangement is key to delivering a successful project. The project could have had greater impact if it had the Nanning Education Bureau as implementing agency (IA). Project deliverables could have been more institutionalized and led to the deepening of the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) reform in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The Nanning Development and Reform Commission played an overall coordination role but lacked direct supervision authority over the two TVET schools.

Project Number: 46047-002
Project Name: Guangxi Nanning Vocational Education Development Project
Report Date:
Lesson
Insufficient up-to-date macroeconomic data on government websites, which could hinder timely and effective planning especially during crisis periods, needs to be rectified. The State Statistical Committee (SSC) has numerous macroeconomic indicators on its website. However, in most cases, very recent data are missing. International organizations such as ADB, the IMF and the World Bank release forecasts of macroeconomic indicators for upcoming years, and SSC should consider following the same approach.

Project Number: 55073-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Accessibility of healthcare data in Azerbaijan needs to be improved. Reports from the Ministry of Health Care are not publicly available on its website. In addition, the State Agency for Mandatory Health Insurance considers healthcare information to be highly sensitive. Accordingly, this information is not contained on its website. Information related to daily coronavirus infections and vaccinations was released publicly. It would be useful for the agency to disseminate gender, age, and region-disaggregated information to the public.

Project Number: 55073-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
It is important to maintain some degree of flexibility to effectively respond to crisis situations. Perhaps the most important quality of Thailand’s CARES program was its ability to rapidly mobilize demand-driven support in a crisis; highlighting the importance in future crisis responses of maintaining some degree of flexibility in both program design and implementation. ADB was able to process and approve the program within 3 months of the government’s initial request for support. Events in Thailand necessitated loan signing to take place about 4 months after ADB approval.

Project Number: 54177-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Indicators and targets relying on surveys that may not be available at the time of measurement could benefit from the identification of alternative measures during program design. One of the outcome Indicators in the CARES design and monitoring framework is measured by the WHO only every 5 years and information about its most recent assessment is due for release in mid to late 2022; after the end of the CARES program. Uncertainties and disruptions created by emergencies need to be considered when designing Indicators to ensure that targets are achievable and realistic.

Project Number: 54177-001
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: