Evaluation

Ongoing Evaluations
ADB's Support for Public Sector Reforms in the Pacific: Enhancing Results Through Ownership, Capacity, and Continuity

Team Leader: Richard Bolt, Principal Evaluation Specialist
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In 1995, ADB established the Office of Pacific Operations in headquarters. It was renamed the Pacific Department in 2002 as part of a broader restructuring process in ADB. The Office of Pacific Operations prepared a new strategy for operations in the Pacific, which became operational in 1996. This showed ADB’s strategic shift from a project lender to a broad-based development agency, which was reflective of development thinking in the Pacific. The strategy proposed a greater focus on ensuring that better policies were put in place, consistent with the need for substantial economic reform agreed by the Forum Island countries during the Brisbane (1994) meeting and further developed in the Madang (1995) and Majuro (1996) meetings. The Pacific developing member countries (DMCs) and major bilateral development agencies to the region including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand recognized that ADB had an important role in their development, bringing the strengths of a multilateral development agency in such areas as economic management and aid agency coordination.

This special evaluation study aims to assess the relevance, feasibility, and overall performance of ADB’s support for reforms in the Pacific DMCs. Specifically, the study will address three key questions:

• Did ADB support relevant reform needs?
• Was ADB’s approach to supporting reforms in the Pacific and use of the program loan modality and TA feasible?
• How can ADB improve its support to the Pacific DMCs for reforms?

The study will identify factors that have influenced results and their sustainability, to identify ways to improve the relevance and feasibility of future ADB approaches to supporting Pacific DMC reforms. The study will give specific attention to how the domestic and regional economic context, institutions and political economy factors, and ties to traditional bilateral development partners have influenced the reform agenda, design, outcomes, and impact of ADB’s support to reforms in the Pacific DMCs.