Aid View
| General Information |
Project/Program |
Project |
| Project Name |
Technical Assistance Project |
| Duration |
Board of Approval: 12/06/1996 Closing Date (original): 06/30/2001; (actual): 12/31/2001 |
| Donor |
World Bank |
| Implementiong Organization |
Ministry of Finance and Economy |
| Sector and/or Subsector Classification |
Others |
| Region |
Not Applicable |
| Financing |
Total project cost was amounted to USD 18.7million dollars, same with the appraisal estimate. |
| Analytical Information |
Stakeholders |
Asian Development Bank, Cambodian Development Council, Cambodian Investment Board, Council of Jurists, Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, Cambodian Rehabilitation and Development Board, Economic Advisory Team, Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, Financial Cooperation and Public Debt, International Committee for the Reconstruction of Cambodia, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, International Development Association, Institutional Development Fund, Interministerial Technical Committee on Administrative, Ministry of Economy and Finance, Multilateral Investment Guaranteed Agency, Ministry of Planning, National Bank of Cambodia, Policy and Human Resources Development Fund, Project Management Unit, Secretariat of State for Civil Service, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, United Nations Development Programme, United States Agency for International Development, Private Sector |
| Cross-cutting Issue |
Environment |
When the project was initiated, United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was running the country with no national budget, no tax department, and no public investment department. In addition, during project implementation, a coup d'état led to adverse affects during 1997-1998. |
| Gender |
No information regarding gender could be found in the Implementation Completion Report. |
| Impact Analysis |
Critical need for assistance was identified in the Country Economic Report, Cambodia: From Rehabilitation to Reconstruction (1994), and in the Country Assistance Strategy (1995), which focused more on economic development. It was not until the coup d'état (1997-1998) when the project's objectives were revised to focus more on public sector reforms which had already been initiated by IMF under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (1999) and an IDA Structural Adjustment Credit. |
| Effectiveness |
Ownership/Partnership |
Evaluation |
Despite strong commitment among the Bank's staff, project was adversely affected by political instability. According to the Implementation Completion Report, commitment was strong within the senior officials of the MEF, but ownership was not transparent among the other ministries and agencies, with little effort at coordinating the activities called for in the project. |
| Rating |
2/5 |
| Policy Coherence/Harmonization |
Evaluation |
No information regarding harmonization and policy coherence was to be found in the Implementation Completion Report. |
| Rating |
N.A. |
| Evaluation Framework |
Evaluation |
The nature of the project made it extremely hard, especially during the coup d'état, for it to be supervised, monitored, managed, and coordinated. Once the new task team was dispatched, an extensive review was conducted in 1999; the project was rated as a 'problem project,' and an internal audit was highly recommended. |
| Rating |
2/5 |
| Alignment/Composition of Finance |
Evaluation |
Sustainability of the project is questionable as implementation was not fully engaged due to various external and internal problems. One of the financial issues were the so called 'allowance payments,' which according to the Implementation Completion Report, became a ritual from the donors to give to the Cambodian civil servants; these allowances gave the civil servants flexibility to use it for the purpose of the development project until the life span of the project. Originally, multiple project management units were to be created by a line of different ministries, however ended up with only one team through one ministry which streamlined 50% of the project's finance and prepared monthly reports of monitoring and reporting to the Bank supervising the overall implementation process. |
| Rating |
2/5 |
| Other Remarks |
Acknowledging the circumstances of Cambodia, project was prepared as a substitution TA project under an umbrella project with a large studies fund allocation. The Implementation Completion report notes the project was spread too thin and objectives were far-fetched. Overall, there was lack of transparency, inadequate financial management, unsatisfactory legal reform and difficult to determine its effectiveness. |
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