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.
The need to obtain varioushe need to obtain various forest and wildlife clearances should be considered at project planning and replanning stages. Processing of forest and wildlife clearances led to some delays in project implementation. The requirements for this should have been considered during the original planning stage and while processing the scope changes, with timeline extensions likewise considered to address the lengthy process of obtaining these clearances in India.
It is important to engage suitable safeguards experts to ensure that high-quality reassessments are undertaken to align safeguards implementation to changes in the project scope. Changes in scope are common in the implementation of large power transmission projects and timely updating of all relevant project documents to reflect and address such changes is necessary. In this project, scope changes were made especially to utilize the large loan savings that resulted from the overestimation of the project costs at appraisal.
Additional ADB support for safeguard implementation should be anticipated for future projects in which the executing and imoplagencies have no prior experience in ESMS. ADB environmental safeguard support was comprehensive for project preparation but less so for project implementation. This was due to a range of factors, which contributed to reduced guidance for the review of subproject safeguard categorization, draft safeguard documents, and support for the implementing agencies.
It is important for future projects to exhaust options to finance a certified institute to prepare IEEs. The project management office's initiative to use a project implementation consultant to prepare the IEEs for category B subprojects was a pragmatic solution to fulfill ESMS requirements and reduce the financial burden on subborrowers. Nonetheless, this approach may have contributed to the suboptimal quality of the IEEs and added to the consultant’s intended key roles, i.e., project oversight, training, monitoring, and reporting.
Delayed implementation of resettlement plans means that land compensation payments are likewise delayed. Implementation of two resettlement plans were delayed but the relevant contracts were completed. As a result, compensation payments were delayed, and the covenants were not fully complied
ADB’s Safeguard Policy Statement (2009) fits well with the RBL modality with comprehensive due diligence review conducted at appraisal and adequate action items integrated into a program action plan and implemented accordingly. The external resettlement Monitoring and evaluation arrangement proved essential to ensure implementation of the proposed actions and to assess the income and livelihood restoration of affected people.