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[Asian Development Bank] Tonle Sap Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project 34382
Author Admin Date 2015.04.08 Views 814
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General Information Project/Program Project/Grant
Project Name Tonle Sap Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project 34382
Duration Approval:20-Oct.-2005 Actual Closing: 31-July-2010/ The project was completed 23 months early (Original: 30-June-2012) prior to its original completion deadline due to scope changes mentioned below.
Donor Asian Development Bank (ADB)
Implementiong Organization Ministry of Rural Development (MRD), Project Management Unit (PMU), Department of Rural Water Supply (DRWS), NGO teams
Sector and/or Subsector Classification Infrastructure
Region Five Provinces Near the Tonle Sap lake; Kampong Chhang, Pursat, Battambang, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom
Financing USD 18million
Analytical Information Stakeholders Ministry of Rural Development (MRD), Project Management Unit (PMU), Department of Rural Water Supply (DRWS), Provincial Departments of Rural Development (PDRD), NGOs, ADB, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project, Commune Councils, Health Centers, Schools, development partners (UNICEF, Water and Sanitation Program and the Netherlands Development Agency), private sectors.
Cross-cutting Issue Environment Monitoring and Evaluation of the executing agency was too weak in areas of planning, poverty targeting, and M&E capacity, especially at the provincial level. In addition, the completion report criticized transparency issues such as (i) executing agency did not respond to requests to update the project website, (ii) MRD simultaneously implemented USD 18.6 million RWSS by the International Monetary Fund reduction funds, but did not involve DRWS, or make the information about the initiative publicly available, (iii) MRD did not promptly take action on the recommendations of the KPMG Cambodia Ltd. external auditing reports.
Gender PMU developed a gender mainstreaming strategy (government's main strategy to address the concerns of both men and women in all sectors) for RWSS and this as an input to the national RWSS strategy development team. The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) gender mainstreaming action group was established in 2006 and a gender mainstreaming action plan (GMAP) was developed in 2006. In this particular project, women were able to participate in village meetings and consisted of many team staff members. No adverse gender issues were mentioned in the completion report.
Impact Analysis The project aligns with the government's National Water and Sanitation Policy(2003), RWSS Sector Investment Plan (2005-2015), the National Strategic Development Plan (2004), National Poverty Reduction Strategy (2003), ADB's country strategy and program (2005-2009).
Effectiveness Ownership/Partnership Evaluation RCG recruited consultants based on ADB's Guidelines on the Use of Consultants; it is reported that there were no disagreements, between the borrower and ADB.
Rating 3/5
Policy Coherence/Harmonization Evaluation The three major sector development partners (ADB, UNICEF, and Water and Sanitation Program and the Netherlands Development Agency) were lacking collaboration strategies and underestimated the development process. Nevertheless, ADB made strong efforts to coordinate sector activities with other development partners (not mentioned in the completion report). However, the supervision arrangements were not RWSS specialists, rather generalist social sector officers who also had responsibility over other numerous sectors.
Rating 2/5
Evaluation Framework Evaluation There was an 18month delay in the submission of the first independent external monitoring report. The consultant teams ( 5 international and 15 national) seemed to be dedicated but had no oversight, technical backstopping, or quality control. In addition, there were no monitoring visits, reports did not benefit from corporate support, numerous milestones had been slipped (e.g. baseline survey, external evaluation, etc.). Independent reports by the Water and Sanitation Program and the Netherlands Development Agency were drafted to check the TSRWSSP latrine usage.
Rating 2/5
Alignment/Composition of Finance Evaluation According to the completion report, the project costs differed significantly from the original allocation and the grant funds were nearly fully committed by late 2009. RGC reduced its contribution amount to 71% of the originally planned budget and beneficiaries to only 7% percent of the planned contribution. In addition, the budget also had shortfalls through the implementation stage due to underestimates in the project design stage, price escalation (2007-2008), and deviation from technology assumptions that resulted higher costs. ADB did not raise ceilings despite RGC's complaints.
Rating 3/5
Other Remarks This project is the first large scale project to improve water access in rural Cambodia. Few scope changes were prevalent, (i) before the midterm review, MRD's implementation focused mostly on hardware and after shifted to software, (ii) less large RDPRD contracts, more community procurement model for sanitation, (iii) cancellations of the public sanitation component due to cost underestimates in 2007-2008. Moreover, district officers had an average of 48 villages to administrate and manage, which were remote and difficult to access; this inadequate allocation prevents project sustainability. The implementation emphasized hardware over crucial software (water use and hygiene education activities) that should have been taken place along with the hardware. Overall, the entire project was implemented over a wide-scattered geographic area leaving large service gaps which decreased health benefits of RWSS. WsUGs need more training, outreach, and behavior change communication to sustain the water points and manage the promotion of hygiene and sanitation.

 

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