Reform Agenda

Project Performance Management System Action Plan

In 2004, the operations Vice Presidents launched a project performance management systems (PPMS) action plan to improve the way projects are planned, designed, implemented, monitored, and evaluated.

The action plan also aimed to ensure that lessons learned are incorporated. More than 500 professional staff have been trained in design and monitoring framework (DMF), the core element of the PPMS. In addition, to ensure effective feedback, lessons from country assistance program evaluations now must be incorporated before preparing a new country partnership strategy (CPS) [ PDF ]. Portfolio performance has been discussed more systematically and regularly at the quarterly Management operations review meetings, and has become a predominant theme of the work program and budget framework [ PDF ], and planning directions.

With a baseline established in 2006, ADB can measure improvements in CPSs and project quality at entry. Meanwhile, using DMF quality as a proxy indicator, project design seems to be improving. A recent Operations Evaluation Department study found that loan projects receiving a satisfactory or better rating in the DMF increased from 52% in 2002 to 81% in 2005−2006. The 2006 assessment suggested that CPS quality is improving with better incorporation of lessons learned. In addition, evidence suggests that greater attention to results is having an impact on the way ADB manages its project portfolio.

In the past 4 years (2004−2007), ADB’s disbursement ratio has risen from 19% in 2003−2004 to 22% in 2005−2006 (25% in 2007), and its contract award-commitment ratio has increased from 7% in 2003−2004 to 28% in 2005−2006 (30% in 2007). The share of projects rated at risk fell from 15% in 2004 to 10% in 2006 (about 8% in 2007).

View more initiatives under Mainstreamed Managing for Development Results.

See also:

• Project Performance Management System: Operations Manual J1 [ PDF: 44kb | 8 pages ]