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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
The development of specialized expertise requires careful selection and the engagement of qualified consultants and proper management of expectations from all parties. Future thinking and foresight is a specialized expertise. It is crucial to identify and engage consultants with proven experience to ensure they can provide the necessary guidance and insights. It is also a new approach for ADB and thus, clear onboarding, communication, and setting expectations for both Staff and consultants who were critiical to the success of the TA.

Project Number: 52299-001
Project Name: Demonstrating Future Thinking and Foresight in Developing Member Countries
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
Inviting borrower representatives such as key personnel from the ministries of finance and government auditors to act as resource speakesr enrich training discussions and hence must be continued. Close coordination with borrowers on selecting the appropriate participants to the seminars should also continue to ensure effectiveness. Target satisfaction rate should be raised to 80% in line with ADB corporate-wide target satisfaction rate for knowledge products.

Project Number: 46534-004
Project Name: Disbursement Capacity Building for Developing Member Countries
Report Date:
Lesson
Professional accounting organizations are reliable partners in initiatives to enhance the financial management capacity of DMCs. This TA benefited from an extensive network of partners from the DMCs and various Professional Accounting Organizations. This collaboration facilitated the gathering of substantive inputs localizing best international practices in auditor quality assurance programs, thereby improving the quality of the TA deliverables.

Project Number: 52113-001
Project Name: Strengthening Financial Management in Asia and the Pacific, Phase 2
Report Date:
Lesson
EAs/IAs and supreme audit institutions (SAIs) have expressed a substantial demand for capacity development initiatives focused on financial reporting and auditing practices. Increased and more frequent collaborative engagement with SAIs and private auditing firms would facilitate the prioritization of limited TA resources, allowing them to be strategically allocated to address the most critical capacity gaps. EAs/IAs staff training need to continuously focus on timely financial reporting and audit and comprehensive coverage of all project expenditures until financial closing.

Project Number: 52113-001
Project Name: Strengthening Financial Management in Asia and the Pacific, Phase 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Support cannot be directed to the most vulnerable in a crisis in the absence of a social protection system that can be utilized or adapted for this purpose—which provides an additional reason for working with developing member countries to establish and strengthen such systems.

Project Number: 54346-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Rapid Response Program
Report Date:
Lesson
The inclusion of expected losses from health-related national emergencies must be considered in the program design of contingency disaster financing given the experience in COVID-19. Because health is now a part overall hazard, this will somewhat provide a quick guide in fund disbursements in case of such occurrences.

Project Number: 52018-001
Project Name: Disaster Resilience Program
Report Date:
Lesson
A more robust assessment of the ability of the recipient agency to implement the proposed capacity-building activities and hire the required consultants and consulting firms in a timely manner is needed in future technical assistance (TA) loans. A smaller TA package could have been considered in view of the frequent changes that typify much of Mongolia’s national government.

Project Number: 49409-001
Project Name: Strengthening Institutional Framework and Management Capacity Project
Report Date:
Lesson
The program design benefited from interaction with ADB staff preparing similar Comprehensive Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic (CPRO) programs in other Pacific countries. ADB’s CPRO policy and guidelines were still being refined while the program was under Preparation. Managing the changing internal guidelines and expectations while also coordinating virtually (due to COVID-19 restrictions) with Vanuatu, ADB’s Pacific Liaison and Coordination Office, and ADB headquarters added significant pressure.

Project Number: 54179-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Fiscal Response Program
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
The development partner assistance was ambitious. Its timeliness and the volume of ADB's Comprehensive Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic (CPRO) financial assistance were well-received by the government. However, this led to a rushed design and inadequate attention to monitoring of implementation, particularly regarding existing capacities to collect gender-disaggregated data in the absence of any existing digital social security systems.

Project Number: 54243-001
Project Name: Health Expenditure and Livelihoods Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
A comprehensive social welfare framework can greatly strengthen the impact of emergency response measures and programs that were intended to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the most vulnerable households. As intended, the program helped to successfully mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizens and businesses. It was aligned with ADB's Strategy 2030 and the Pacific Approach.

Project Number: 54243-001
Project Name: Health Expenditure and Livelihoods Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Quick disbursing budget support is an effective instrument to respond to a crisis. Such an approach allows for strong alignment with government priorities and supports the government's ownership of the response measures. The eligibility criteria provide the necessary framework for due diligence. Timely upstream support can then be complemented with other forms of support–technical assistance, knowledge work, project investments–to reinforce the intended impact.

Project Number: 54138-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
Report Date: