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Joint ADB/WB Country Portfolio Performance Review

Welcome Remarks by
Makoto Ojiro
Country Director, Tajikistan Resident Mission
Asian Development Bank

Dushanbe, Tajikistan
23 September 2008

Dear Mr. Chairman, Ministers, participants of the meeting, ladies and gentlemen, good morning to all of you. I would like to join Mr. Davlatov and Ms. Bronchi in welcoming you all on behalf of the Asian Development Bank to this Joint Country Portfolio Performance Review Meeting.

The overall objective of the portfolio review process is to help the government improve effectiveness and efficiency in the use of loans and grants provided by the two institutions.

As you may know, this Country Portfolio Performance Review is the fourth in a series conducted jointly by the Government, the Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank. I believe it is very timely to hold this meeting now. The ADB has been operating in this country in the last 10 years, and if you look at the size of our portfolio, it has grown to a total of 33 ongoing projects, including loans, TAs, grants, etc, in the amount of about $344 million. I think this is quite an achievement, but, at the same time, we do have issues associated with project implementation. And that's why it is timely to have an overhaul of our portfolio at this stage.

The last joint portfolio review took place in October 2006, and let me report on certain progress since that time. In July 2006, the government integrated several project implementation units into a Center for Management of Projects in the energy sector to implement almost all energy projects financed by multilateral and bilateral donors. Good progress has been achieved in harmonization of procedures, project activities, and strategies. In January 2007, ADB and the World Bank carried out a joint procurement mission that aimed at harmonizing procurement procedures used by both institutions. As a result, both institutions have substantially streamlined their requirements for the national competitive bidding method under our projects. There was also the first joint procurement training for project implementation units and executing agencies. Both country offices and visiting missions of the two institutions have coordinated their activities and shared information. There was a joint retreat for ADB and the World Bank country office staff in June 2007 focusing on harmonization, improving coordination and information sharing at the country level.

We have conducted joint activities and missions in common sectors. The timing of visiting missions in the energy, agriculture, and education sectors has been closely coordinated and, when possible, joint ADB-WB missions were held. I recognize, however, that we do sometimes face difficulties of coordinating in certain circumstances, and we need to improve on that. Finally, both institutions are harmonizing the preparation of their country partnership strategies through the Donor Coordination Council in developing the first joint country support strategy for 2009-2012, and in fact, we have as many as ten agencies joining this effort. Just last week, donors and the government had a two-day retreat to talk about this new joint strategy, and some of you may have been at that meeting.

Today's meeting will highlight the development in the joint portfolio during the past two years, present key issues and suggest recommendations on improving the portfolio performance.

Let me now commend the Government for taking the lead in this portfolio review exercise. Mr. Davlatov, as Governor of ADB, is always ready to work with us in improving our portfolio. And, of course, Mr. Hamraliev, Chairman of the State Committee of Investments and State Property Management (Goscominvest) was instrumental in preparing for today's meeting.

Well, what should be the outcome of this meeting? To me, I would like to come away from this meeting thinking that "yes, these are the issues for my project, so I will do this and this and this to solve it". If each one of us attending this meeting feels like this at the end of the meeting, I am sure we can make a difference in improving our portfolio.

Thank you for your kind attention, and wishing you a productive and useful meeting.