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Displaying 91 - 105 of 106

Lesson
Grants are particularly useful in providing immediate fiscal relief to small and fragile economies.

Project Number: 47318-001
Project Name: Strengthened Fiscal Sustainability Program
Report Date:
Lesson
The grant pre-conditions were an incentive for the government to reform state owned enterprise (SOE) governance and operation and improve management of government revenue, expenditure, assets, and liabilities. An ongoing ADB technical assistance (TA) was timely in supporting SOE reforms that preceded and continued after grant release.

Project Number: 47314-001
Project Name: Strengthening Fiscal Stability Program: Program Completion Report
Report Date:
Lesson
The program grant enabled the Revenue Equalization Reserve Fund (RERF) drawdown to be reduced in 2014 and expedited reforms. Ongoing actions under the post-program partnership framework can be combined into a multi-year matrix linked to ongoing budget support. The program also highlighted the importance of partnership (with government and other development partners) through creation of a joint policy matrix.

Project Number: 47314-001
Project Name: Strengthening Fiscal Stability Program: Program Completion Report
Report Date:
Lesson
No new lessons

Project Number: 43321-013, 43321-023
Project Name: Public Sector Program—Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
Targets and indicators in the DMF of program loans such as this need to be extremely conscious of exogenous factors. There is also a need for ADB program to assign focus areas for policy coordination and monitoring among ADB and other development partners so that respective contributions to policy dialogue under the different program components can be traced.

Project Number: 43191-023, 43191-013
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program— Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
The incentive framework should have played a larger role in moving the economic agenda forward.

Project Number: 39658-013
Project Name: Economic Recovery Program
Report Date:
Lesson
All Pacific developing member countries, including Samoa, experience great difficulty implementing long-term structural adjustment policies. While demand-side, short-term price stabilization policies may be more readily implemented, longer-term changes to land tenure and state-owned enterprises and efforts to liberalize trade and investment regimes confront a very difficult political economy environment in the Pacific islands. Governments are comfortable with short-term price reforms that pose less of a challenge to the political economy.

Project Number: 43191-013, 43191-023
Project Name: Economic Recovery Support Program - Subprograms 1 and 2
Report Date:
Lesson
The program's DMF was overambitious (para. 8) and, based on ADB guidelines for DMF preparation could have been correctly recast to make the outcome the intended impact and output 1 the intended outcome. The outcome and impact statements and indicators and targets in a DMF need to be realistic and take into account the country context. [Main text, para. 38]

Project Number: 43321-013, 43321-023
Project Name: Public Sector Program - Subprograms 1 and 2: Program Completion Report
Report Date:
Lesson
The intended program outcome of achieving fiscal sustainability was overambitious, given the historically slow pace of reforms in the Republic of Marshall Islands and in other countries facing fragile situations. Moving forward with the reforms needed to fully deliver the program outputs required approval of three key pieces of enabling legislation, but the program design did not take into account the likelihood of a lengthy parliamentary approval process and underestimated the political opposition such reforms might encounter.

Project Number: 43321-013, 43321-023
Project Name: Public Sector Program - Subprograms 1 and 2: Program Completion Report
Report Date:
Lesson
Policy dialogue required on-the-ground support from ADB. Establishment of the ADB development coordination office in November 2011 played a key role in forging policy dialogue, although this was undertaken issue-by-issue (expenditure management, taxation, and state-owned enterprise reform) rather than through a holistic approach. Other development partners also provided substantial support for public sector reform in the Republic of Marshall Islands, but the coordinated dialogue with government that has been used successfully in programs elsewhere in the Pacific was missing.

Project Number: 43321-013, 43321-023
Project Name: Public Sector Program - Subprograms 1 and 2: Program Completion Report
Report Date:
Lesson
All Pacific developing member countries, including the Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), have great difficulty implementing policies to support long-term adjustments. The program included several line expenditure conditions under output 2 that the government struggled to implement and monitor (para. 16). In the end, the government decided to make across-the-board expenditure cuts rather than the targeted cuts proposed under the program. The condition targets were related to budget estimates rather than budget outturns.

Project Number: 43321-013, 43321-023
Project Name: Public Sector Program - Subprograms 1 and 2: Program Completion Report
Report Date:
Lesson
The Economic Recovery Program (ERP) was developed in close consultation with the government and development partners such as the International Monetary Authority (IMF) and the World Bank through many joint missions, and was designed through a holistic approach. The ADB shared the policy matrix with the IMF and the World Bank and coordinated closely with them in the final design. The ADB also attended the Development Partnership Forum in the Maldives in March 2009 and held discussions with other key development partners.

Project Number: 39658-013
Project Name: Economic Recovery Program
Report Date:
Lesson
Institutionalizing change-management practices among those charged with implementing reforms - such as the efforts undertaken in the Economic recovery Program to provide staff with technical skills to implement new revenue measures at Ministry of Finance and Treasury - requires upgrading of technical and change-management competency. It is necessary to enable government to sustain capacity development programs beyond the life of a program (for example, by providing training experts, particularly to develop soft capacities).

Project Number: 39658-013
Project Name: Economic Recovery Program
Report Date:
Lesson
In addition to appropriate reform sequencing, ambitious and complex programs and projects are more likely to succeed if significant attention is given to building the capability and ownership of the relevant stakeholders. The Economic Recovery Program successfully tackled a wide range of issues in a short time, while also contributing significantly to developing capacity at the Ministry of Finance and Treasury.

Project Number: 39658-013
Project Name: Economic Recovery Program
Report Date:
Lesson
A key consideration in sequencing is that legislative and regulatory reforms require changes in the capacity of institutions, meaning policy and rules; in the organizations charged with implementation; and in the abilities and management practices of responsible government officers. This cascade of legislative and regulatory requirements - from institutions to organizations to people - would seem to provide a strategic sequence for reforms, but, in practice, this is not a linear sequence. Rather, people - officials and stakeholders - are involved from the outset of the reform process.

Project Number: 39658-013
Project Name: Economic Recovery Program
Report Date: