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Displaying 1 - 15 of 19

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
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Lesson
It is important to listen to government counterparts and to understand the local context of the country through in-depth diagnostic study. This will help in recommending suitable and context-specific solutions. Project teams should try to anticipate country requests, especially during the conduct of the diagnostic studies, for which costs can sometimes be underestimated.

Project Number: 54076-001
Project Name: Strengthening Property Tax Management to Enhance Local Revenue
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Lesson
Effective coordination and harmonization of policies, strategies, and action plans among the development partners can meaningfully support fragile countries. The joint policy reform matrix (JPRM) demonstrated how four development partners came together to provide sizable budget support to Tonga in its hour of need, when the country faced multiple challenges, including disasters triggered by natural hazards, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a fragile economy.

Project Number: 55016-001
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program
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Lesson
An innovative approach is needed to encourage the government in implementing critical reforms, but the approach needs to be culturally sensitive. The program shows that a reform associated with a wage bill is difficult to implement. Layoffs or significant cuts in overtime payment have social ramifications and need to be dealt with sensitively, especially when there are limited alternative employment opportunities.

Project Number: 55016-001
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program
Report Date:
Lesson
A combination of policy-based lending (PBL) and technical assistance (TA) engagement, based on ADB's differentiated approach in small island developing states (SIDS), can further enhance the impact of ADB assistance to public sector management in Fiji. The design of this reflected ADB's differentiated approach in SIDS, spreading reforms across complementary areas and government units while combining policy actions that introduce or advance policy and legal frameworks with those that support their implementation.

Project Number: 55116-001
Project Name: Sustainable and Resilient Recovery Program
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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
The program has helped strengthen ADB’s role as a trusted partner and created a positive experience for the government to strengthen its relations with development partners. The loan provided international funds that have helped address the government’s objective to reduce borrowing in the domestic market and have helped ensure liquidity in Thailand’s private sector. The program’s accompanying technical assistance provided the government with value-added policy dialogue and technical assistance to help address the government’s knowledge needs as they evolved through the crisis.

Project Number: 54177-001
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
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
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
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
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
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Lesson
Quick and flexible budget support is essential during times of crisis. The timely availability of the ADB CPRO support greatly contributed to mitigating the impact of the pandemic, particularly for low-income countries and countries in vulnerable situations. Availability of such an instrument is highly relevant for a country in times of crisis.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program
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Lesson
Avoid assuming policy changes when setting targets in a crisis. The program design assumed that coordination of all government-subsidized employment would be transferred to the employment service centers established in each local government under the Prime Minister Employment Program (PMEP). Because of the impact of the crisis, this transfer did not happen and the PMEP was unable to achieve the target. A target set during a crisis should not assume a policy change.

Project Number: 54184-001
Project Name: COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support 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
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