THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) Independent Evaluation Department (IED) said the majority of the Manila-based multilateral development bank’s sovereign operations were rated successful in the past three years.
The IED said 70 percent of ADB’s sovereign operations between 2019 and 2021 were deemed successful. However, its nonsovereign operations were less successful with only 55 percent given a successful rating.
“The findings showed that although ADB accepted the majority of IED evaluation recommendations, further efforts are needed to narrow the gap between the acceptance of recommendations and their implementation,” ADB Senior Evaluation Specialist and co-author of the report Sung Shin said.
The IED also said overall effectiveness improved to 69 percent in 2019–2021 from 64 percent in 2018–2020. The report stated that this “was largely brought about by the strong effectiveness performance of sovereign operations in 2021.”
However, the IED said the performance of ADB’s sovereign operations between 2019 and 2021 was lower than the 72 percent posted in 2018 to 2020.
IED said this was largely due to “economic benefits that were less than envisaged, implementation delays, and cost overruns, all of which reduced the economic viability of projects.”
“Sovereign project performance in South Asia showed a slight improvement in 2019–2021, while that in other regions, it either declined slightly or remained the same,” the IED said, nonetheless.
The IED said the report called on ADB to closely align project scopes with financing plans and implementation arrangements as well as establish clear targets and mechanisms to monitor them.
It also pointed out the need for effective implementation of institutional support and targeted reforms for strengthening the executing and/or implementing agency’s capacity to enhance project effectiveness.
The IED also conducted an in‐depth assessment on ADB’s engagement in “fragile and conflict‐affected situations,” or FCAS, and “small island developing states,” or SIDS, which are facing pandemic-related fiscal challenges.
The report underscored the need for more long-term and well-coordinated support rather than short-term, one-off technical assistance to help address capacity and governance challenges.
It also stressed that giving equal emphasis to active conflict and to institutional fragilities is imperative when implementing ADB’s FCAS-related approaches. It recommended ADB’s country-level and project-level monitoring frameworks and indicators to be better tailored to their contexts.
The report viewed resilience in FCAS and SIDS as a multidimensional challenge that requires ADB’s long-term capacity development support and enhanced collaboration with other development organizations.
ADB’s partnerships with humanitarian and development agencies are crucial in bridging relief and development, especially in conflict-affected areas.