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Lesson
It will be essential to find a balance in future TA projects between continuing support for the whole region and having activities and outputs focus on a subset of countries to allow for more granularity in analyses and deeper engagements. This was the first TA for the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) in the field of disaster risk financing (DRF), and as such, was designed to cover all 11 CAREC countries.

Project Number: 53198-001
Project Name: Developing a Disaster Risk Transfer Facility in the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Region
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
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
Ownership of the reform process is critical and, given the experience of this, it will remain so. The reform agenda was fully in line with government and ADB strategies and priorities. This allowed for timely and quick support that resulted in comprehensive products. Detailed discussion on outcome indicators at the design stage is critical to finding the best possible indicators for measuring outcome.

Project Number: 51066-001, 51066-003
Project Name: Finance Sector and Fiscal Management Improvement Program (Subprograms 1 and 2)
Report Date:
Lesson
Continuing dialogue between ADB and the Uzbekistan government is necessary to further improve the government's focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Potential gender entry points for ADB could be to support knowledge building on gender-based budgeting, integrating gender and social dimensions into social protection systems, and gender-focused small and mediyum-sized enterprise development programs for job creation.

Project Number: 56149-001
Project Name: Building Resilience with Active Countercyclical Expenditures Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Strong coordination and regular meetings between the executing agencies and ADB teams, backed by governments' strong commitment to reforms are crucial to the success of reform programs. This program was an effective countercyclical crisis response tool that helped Uzbekistan respond to an external economic shock. Strong coordination and regular meetings between the government counterparts and ADB teams were key to implementing the program outputs.

Project Number: 56149-001
Project Name: Building Resilience with Active Countercyclical Expenditures Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Technical assistance (TA) is important to ensure timely identification and support to critical reforms at challenging times. TA support contributed to the program being implemented within the original timeline. Transaction TA allowed for the development of additional activities that formed the post-program partnership framework (P3F). The practice of including P3F actions in the design of the programmatic policy-based lending should be continued, as it shapes up next-level dialogue with the government. It also helps ADB and the government to maintain a longer-term prospective.

Project Number: 51066-001, 51066-003
Project Name: Finance Sector and Fiscal Management Improvement Program (Subprograms 1 and 2)
Report Date:
Lesson
TA is a useful tool for developing context-specific and country-led reform priorities, which can be used as a starting point for building long-term government commitment to thoroughgoing reforms.

Project Number: 53105-001
Project Name: Strengthening Tax Policy and Administration Capacity
Report Date:
Lesson
Labor market activation programs, while effective in addressing specific constraints, are not a substitute for sound education policy, quality primary and secondary education, and tertiary education that is both relevant and effective. It is much more difficult to develop, standardize, launch, and institutionalize labor market activation programs as compared to improving the existing education system which already has a nationwide capacity and reach.

Project Number: 49117-002, 49117-003, 49117-004
Project Name: Facilitating Youth School-to-Work Transition Program (Subprograms 1, 2, and 3)
Report Date:
Lesson
Coordinated use of TA is essential to support policy based lending, as this modality on its own is not well positioned to develop or deploy needed capacity. The TA grants funded by the Government of Canada provided the hands-on support necessary to develop policy and operating systems, which was followed by the program to provide the leverage to support the actual rollout of the JobStart Philippines Program (JSP).

Project Number: 49117-002, 49117-003, 49117-004
Project Name: Facilitating Youth School-to-Work Transition Program (Subprograms 1, 2, and 3)
Report Date:
Lesson
The success of the government anti-crisis plan in terms of maintaining economic growth and protecting vulnerable groups validated the effectiveness of the government’s approach. The reforms it promoted proved successful in achieving the government’s goals of protecting vulnerable citizens, ensuring food security, and maintaining employment levels while promoting gender equality and climate and disaster resilience.

Project Number: 56147-001
Project Name: Building Resilience with Active Countercyclical Expenditures Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Deep diagnostic work, extensive technical assistance (TA), and evidence-based policy dialogue benefit the design and implementation of public sector management reform program. ADB has ensured continuity in policy reform efforts through programmatic policy-based lending (PBL) modality. Through this and other PBL programs, it has been very effective in engaging in high-level dialogue for upstream and mid-term support. PBLs are even more important now at other partners (such as the World Bank) are no longer providing general budget support.

Project Number: 52225-001, 52225-002, 52225-003, 52225-004
Project Name: Promoting Economic Diversification Program (Subprograms 1, 2 and 3)
Report Date:
Lesson
Focusing on downstream engagement in select areas through sector development programs and project investments could help unlock structural bottlenecks in service delivery at the local level. This would require follow-on collaboration with various sector teams, such as in agriculture, trade, information technology, health, education, energy, urban, and climate solutions. In other words, building on policies, laws, and institutional capacity to improve service delivery and overall client experience.

Project Number: 52225-001, 52225-002, 52225-003, 52225-004
Project Name: Promoting Economic Diversification Program (Subprograms 1, 2 and 3)
Report Date:
Lesson
Public sector management reform programs have the potential and can be designed to support the government in staying on the reform course despite challenges. A lack of fiscal buffers and effective social protection systems exacerbated the economy’s vulnerability to the COVID-19 pandemic.This program has successfully supported the government in hanging on to the reform process despite these challenges.

Project Number: 52225-001, 52225-002, 52225-003, 52225-004
Project Name: Promoting Economic Diversification Program (Subprograms 1, 2 and 3)
Report Date:
Lesson
The crisis presented an opportunity for promoting and institutionalizing gender equality, which the program has successfully harnessed.The program featured strong gender equality actions that helped significantly to promote gender empowerment and ensure its formalization in the government’s policy agenda. These actions include improving the policy, legal, and institutional environment for gender equality, supporting women’s entrepreneurship and access to finance, and strengthening protection from gender-based violence during the pandemic.

Project Number: 52225-001, 52225-002, 52225-003, 52225-004
Project Name: Promoting Economic Diversification Program (Subprograms 1, 2 and 3)
Report Date: