Evaluation

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Evaluation of the Urban Sector and Water Supply and Sanitation in Bangladesh
Completed: 2009

Introduction

Bangladesh may be a predominantly rural country but its fast growing urban population (36 million) already exceeds that of Thailand or Viet Nam. Bangladesh as a river delta may seem rich in water resources, but water supply and sanitation are nevertheless well known major problems, and salinity and biological and arsenic contamination issues have not gone away.

This sector assistance program evaluation assesses work done over 2001–2008 by ADB, as well as other development partners. ADB's collaboration with the Department for International Development (DFID)*, the Japanese Government, and the World Bank* regarding a joint country strategy in 2005 [ PDF ], led to this major evaluation initiative. The evaluation includes a comprehensive review of the urban sector and the work done by government and international donors, as well as a review of the state of urban and rural water supply and sanitation (WSS) in the country.

The evaluation includes the results of a questionnaire survey of the project managers of all ongoing projects of these four development partners in the country, and compares the sector's relative performance, problems, and opportunities, relative to that of other sectors. The survey also probed issues with project implementation units and the use of consultants, contributing to the international discussion on the need for alignment and harmonization.

Summary of Assessments

Using the Independent Evaluation Department's rating system [ PDF ], this evaluation finds ADB's program in the two sectors in the 2000s successful. Programs of other major partners such as DFID, Japanese government, and World Bank were assessed as well.

The top-down assessment regarded ADB sector positioning, ADB contribution to sector results, and ADB performance all as satisfactory. Based on the bottom-up assessment, ADB's program in the urban sector and WSS was partly successful. ADB’s role as the agency with the highest financial support has been relevant. The program offered by the development partners has also been relevant. ADB and others were relatively absent with meaningful programs in Bangladesh's main cities, but after 2006, the partners scaled up their assistance appropriately. The benefits of this were yet to be realized at the time of this evaluation (mid 2008). In the secondary towns, the programs have been more continuous over the decade and they were assessed as effective, with very few investments being wasted or underutilized. Development partners’ and, specifically, ADB’s interventions in WSS are assessed as effective on balance. This evaluation assesses the aid programs, including ADB's, as being less efficient. There is little external support for operation and maintenance budgets in either of the sectors. In view of all of this, the sustainability of the various external investments is less likely. There is little reason to rate ADB-funded projects higher in terms of their sustainability.

Key Lessons

• Problems are coming to a head in the larger cities, especially in housing, transport, slums, and solid waste. Special problems are posed by arsenic contamination in rural water supplies and by water supply in Dhaka. Provided that development partners are supported by the Government, they need to conduct more analysis in the more difficult sectors. There is a need for more comprehensive frameworks for investments, policy and institutional reform, and capacity development.
• Development partners should support those financing mechanisms that engender greater municipal accountability as well as promote local resource mobilization to ensure the sustainability of subprojects.
• Projects in the urban sector and WSS often have complex and decentralized PIUs and use many local consultants apart from some international consultants. Capacity development nevertheless seems a more likely phenomenon than capacity erosion, although the effects of local consultants may need to be watched.
• Development partners need to consider the implications of differences in financing models and conditions for nonrevenue-generating urban infrastructure and services in the secondary towns. There is a need for greater coordination, aid agency harmonization, and alignment with government systems and priorities, although the Government should also play a more leading role.
• Program based approaches have hardly been tried in the sector until recently, and may hold significant potential to cope with the systemic problems of a more dispersed, projectized approach. Sector wide approaches may be better suited to deal with such issues as contradictory procedures and financing rules, low government transfers of national budget to local governments, and underpaid government staff and adverse civil service conditions.

Recommendations

• ADB should put emphasis on economic, sector, and thematic work in
  1. Dhaka water supply;
  2. pourashava water supply, flood protection, and urban infrastructure;
  3. urban transport; and
  4. decentralization or devolution of powers to local governments.
• To support the first recommendation above, ADB should assign more human resources to the Bangladesh Resident Mission, dedicated to the urban sector, and consider posting a specialist with a brief to enhance policy dialogue with other aid agencies and the Government. The size of the current and future urban sector and WSS loans and grants merits this.
• ADB should consider the relationship among ADB, the Local Government Engineering Department, and the Bangladesh Municipal Development Fund (BMDF), notably in terms of the complementarity of their assistance with that provided by the BMDF. Financing conditions should be harmonized.

Team Leader: Walter A.M. Kolkma, Senior Evaluation Specialist. Email: wkolkma@adb.org