Coordination across several government agencies require strong leadership and persistence; given the regular transfer of government officials to other positions and ministries, it is important to set up a scheme for maintaining institutional memory within the executing and implementing agencies throughout program implementation.
High turnover of staff in project implementing and other relevant agencies affects institutional memory. It requires additional time and effort to introduce to new staff while ensuring close involvement and ownership in project implementation.
High staff turnover worsens capacity constraints. In this project, it aggravated lack of capacity to undertake procurement using ADB's Procurement Guidelines and the increased risk of misconduct and delays during implementation. Additional procurement capacity building for executing agency staff during implementation is therefore necessary even if procurement capacity risk is considered minimal at project appraisal.
Proper handover of project responsibilities and documents will prevent staff turnover from negatively impacting project implementation and documentation. Staff turnover at the executing and implementing agencies caused implementation delays and loss of institutional memory.
The executing agency was not able to prepare the project completion report because staff could not recall or find information related to the original project. The unintended consequences would have been prevented by proper handover of documents and responsibilities.
Selection of the most suitable modality to support institutional development requires adequate consideration of the various factors intricately linked to it, including the prevailing political dynamics, incentive structures in public administration, and commitment of the relevant development agencies. In the case of this project, frequent changes in the senior management of the Erdenes Mongol jeopardized project ownership and seriously affected implementation.
High staff turnover, weak procurement and contract management capacities, and lack of familiarity with ADB procedures, often the cause of implementation delays, need to be addressed jointly by ADB and government counterpart agencies. Because of the changes in the executing agency’s senior-level officials, turnover of the project staff was high. The project also suffered from counterpart agencies' weak procurement and contract management capacity and lack of familiarity with ADB guidelines.
High turnover of government project staff affects institutional memory and implies additional time and effort to introduce the project’s concepts to a new team to
ensure the government is involved and owns the project implementation.
Maintaining key specialists even after major institutional changes helps keep institutional memory within the executing agency and is important for successful project implementation. During project implementation, the government’s economic reform caused institutional changes in the road sector. Despite the change, key members of project management unit remained unchanged, which helped minimize delay.
Lack of continuity in the staff of key project agencies could lead to chronic implementation delays. Procurement of works and recruitment of consultants followed due process and were completed; albeit with delays. Although NHA has carried out procurement for multiple MDB-financed projects; a lack of continuity of key staff at its Procurement and Contract Administration posed challenges for each procurement and this project was no exception. Procurement consultant support is a regular feature provided by ADB.
Institutional continuity, through the retention of project staff throughout implementation, is crucial to project success. Most of the EA and IA staff were retained throughout the project implementation period. The resulting institutional continuity tremendously helped the successful completion of the project.