By M Naeem Chaudhry
YOKOHAMA (Japan), May 05 (APP): The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is
delivering with efficacy against its goal to enhance development finance to the Asia and Pacific region, realizing most of its development and operational targets during the four year span (2013-16)
ADB’s climate change mitigation and energy projects, including
renewable energy, achieved 100% of their intended outputs in 2016, said the 2016 Development Effectiveness Review adding, nearly half of all ADB projects supported climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.
New ADB Performance review, made public here Friday at the 50th Annual
Meeting of ADB’s Board of Governors, measured how well the Bank is executing its corporate strategy, Strategy 2020, and the strategic priorities of the midterm review of the strategy across 91 results indicators.
“ADB is delivering on its commitment to helping the Asia and Pacific
region reduce poverty and achieve more inclusive and sustainable growth,” stated Indu Bhushan, Director General of ADB’s Strategy and Policy Department.
“ADB will continue streamlining its operations so that it can deliver
development solutions more quickly and effectively, while continuing to scale up finance for the region”, he added.
The 2016 Development Effectiveness Review (DEfR), ADB’s tenth annual
corporate performance assessment, indicated ADB met rather surpassed 62% of the targets for development results and operational and organizational effectiveness. The report is the fourth and final report under the 2013-16 results framework.
Among the report’s main findings are that During the 2013-16 period,
ADB financed the building and upgrading of 34,000 kilometers (km) of roads and 1,400 km of railways, the installation of 13 gigawatts of new power generation capacity, a third being renewable, and grid connection of 692,000 households. New or improved water supply reached 3 million households, while 5.7 million people” 40% of whom are women — benefited from improved availability of financial services.
More than 2 million teachers were trained. Nearly three quarters of
projects achieved ADB’s targets for gender mainstreaming, a measure that assesses the extent to which projects integrate gender issues.
ADB approved $17.5 billion in financing in 2016 from its own resources
and attracted $13.9 billion in cofinancing — both new highs. It also disbursed $12.48 billion, another record. The institution also surpassed its target for public-private partnerships, supporting 58 transactions during the 2013-2016 period and outperforming the target of 50.
The 2016 DEfR, while viewing the rise in 3-year project success rates,
highlighted the opportunity to increase results achievement through better project design, improved quality at project inception, and improved risk assessments for non-sovereign projects.
Efforts are being made to boost project readiness, minimize delays,
improve efficiency, and raise overall success rates through a second generation of procurement reforms, observed the Review continuing, steps are also being taken to raise women’s representation among international staff and optimize human resources for a stronger, better, and faster ADB.
Project sustainability “the likelihood of sustained results from ADB
projects” has also seen improvements, but not enough to reach the 80% target due to various it noted adding, shortcomings, in particular operations and maintenance,. Other issues include the lengthy processes for procurement, project approval, and implementation, stated the DEIR.
To address these challenges, ADB is implementing a transitional results
framework for 2017-2020 as the bank continues to prepare a new corporate results framework aligned with Strategy 2030 ADB’s new long-term strategic plan which is currently being developed, the Review maintained.
