Climate risks such as monsoon and weather conditions need to be considered in drawing up implementation schedules.
A draft proposal on income restoration and rehabilitation programs need to be prepared along with the safeguard plans to avoid delays in safeguards implementation. In this project, contractors of four packages should have deployed fulltime environmental and occupational safety and health personnel to raise awareness and enforce the safeguard requirements for subcontractors and workers.
In addition to ensuring robust environmental assessment and management to avoid project delays and operational disruptions, it is imperative to plan for and link mitigation measures such as the installation of bird flight diverters to the commissioning of power lines and financial closure, rather than leaving such measures to be retrofitted after the power lines have become operational. Insufficient attention to forest clearance needs during project design and planning resulted in implementation delays. The quality of the environmental assessments fell short.
Changes to a project's scope and routings are common among energy projects of this nature and magnitude, but it is important to update all relevant project documents accordingly. Despite significant scope changes during project implementation, the design and monitoring framework was not revised to account for the changes. This resulted in the project's performance being evaluated against targets that were not updated. However, the loan agreement was amended accordingly.
In projects where institutional and financial capacity is relatively strong, ADB's financial additionality can be demonstrated by instilling proper design and implementation of social and environmental safeguards in infrastructure projects.
Creativity in implementing subprojects to minimize safeguards issues is critical in avoiding major delays. This was demonstrated in the redesign of irrigation canals and the installation of a box culvert in one of the project sites.
Building systems and organizational capacity is critical to the success of social assistance programs. Moving beyond a pilot to a national CCTprogram requires establishing project management structures, robust systems for information management, accountability mechanisms, and significant human resources. Despite impressive growth, the Philippines' CCT program faced challenges as it expanded nationally.
Key government policy changes need to be monitored for possible impacts on projects and project updates undertaken as necessary. Tranche 3 faced major resettlement challenges and experienced delays of up to 2.5 years beyond the initially approved loan closing date. This was because local authorities encountered difficulties in completing site clearance and subsequent compensation payments. Until the preparation of ADB’s project completion report, compensation payments have remained pending on (i) 3 subprojects because of
Project monitoring needs to continue until the preparation of the project completion report (PCR). From loan closure in August 2020 to project completion in February 2022, APDCL implemented the project using its own resources. A streamlined process for monitoring and reporting was not followed during this period. While there were no adverse incidents or complaints reported during this period, it would be in the best interest of the project, the borrowing governments, and ADB to continue keeping a close watch on the project and its operation until at least PCR preparation.
Executing agencies (EAs) should engage qualified safeguards specialists to support safeguards implementation, supervision, monitoring, and reporting. The project EA, Assam Power Generation Corporation Limited (APGCL), managed the environmental safeguards requirements without the planned consultant. However, engaging an expert to support APGCL in handling pollution control aspects and strengthening internal staff capacity would have been desirable to ensure that issues were detected and reported properly.