| Project Detail |
Project Name
Support for Strengthening ADB’s Development Impact in Selected Developing Member Countries – Piloting Phase
Project Number
58261-001
Country / Economy
Regional
Project Status
Active
Project Type / Modality of Assistance
Technical Assistance
The technical assistance (TA) will support activities (on a pilot basis) to increase the positive development impact of ADB operations in Developing Member Countries.
Project Rationale and Linkage to Country/Regional Strategy
ADB will work closely with clients to strengthen the impact of its projects in improving the lives women, men, and children in the region. The 2022 Organizational Review paper (R-paper), in setting out the New Operating Model, called for increasing "development impact" to address the increasing complexity of development challenges, including climate change and private sector development, and ensure that the pressure to meet quantity lending objectives did not obscure ADBs central mandate to foster economic, social, and environmental progress.
The R-paper called for a "corporate effort to increase the development impact of ADB projects, including by establishing appropriate methods to help select, design, adjust and assess projects on their contribution to development impact" (para. 86). The research department was renamed the Economic Research and Development Impact Department (ERDI) and tasked to suggest and establish these "appropriate methods".
In doing so, ERDI has: (a) consulted with other departments; (b) reviewed current ADB practices on country programming, project processing, and evaluation; and (c) undertaken a review of practices at other development banks and global organizations. In the first quarter of 2024, a draft recommendations paper, Strengthening ADBs Development Impact (SADI), was prepared and served as the basis for further consultations with other ADB departments through to September 2024. SADI and an associated Piloting Plan were circulated to all departments for feedback and a Heads of Departments meeting was held on 4 September 2024. SADI includes the outline for a Development Impact Project Assessment (DIPA) framework to focus attention on impacts across 7 dimensions.
During earlier interdepartmental consultations, it was proposed that the recommendations contained in SADI be piloted for one year or more. The purpose of this TA is to support such piloting. Most of the pilot activities will not involve new activities but improvements to existing processes, be that in knowledge work (diagnostics) or project processing and evaluation. The piloting activities are designed to improve the quality of diagnostics and projects and thereby generate greater development impact on the lives of women, men, and children in the project countries. The results of piloting will inform the future design and rollout of improvement measures across the bank after the piloting phase.
A Piloting Plan based on SADI has been drafted and shared with departments for feedback. It will be finalized and included with the TA report. Country diagnostic studies that are just beginning have been identified for inclusion as pilot activities using new methodologies. In a similar manner, just over a dozen projects at early stages of processing have been identified to pilot the new improvement initiatives. These countries and projects will be listed in the TA report, following further consultations with concerned departments and units to ensure their appropriateness for piloting and for representativeness across sectors, regions, lending modalities, complexity, and other criteria. |
