Water

The ADB Water Policy stipulates that an in-house review on policy implementation should be conducted on the 3rd year and that this interim review should be reported to the Board as an information paper.

In 2003, ADB’s Water Sector Committee (WSC) undertook this review and issued a "progress report" on the “Water for All" policy. The results were later taken into consideration when ADB undertook a comprehensive, independent review of its policy implementation in 2005.

• Assess the extent to which the water policy has been integrated into ADB water operations
• Stimulate improvements in ADB project design and implementation

ADB's Water Sector Committee (WSC) conducted the interim review. The scope of the review included

• water assessments and policy dialogue in developing member countries (DMCs)
• design of loan and technical assistance projects
• response to ADB's poverty reduction strategy
• progress of regional cooperation
• internal ADB actions
• impact of ADB's 2002 reorganization on policy implementation
• impact of the Cooperation Fund for the Water Sector on operations

The WSC's analysis focused on whether water-related projects had been designed to comply with the policy.

The WSC looked at 121 project designs for loans and technical assistance projects. Of these, 117 were public sector projects and 4 were private sector investments.

• Progress in terms of incorporating the seven key elements into water projects is as follows:
  

  Encouraging Progress	Modest Progress	Limited Progress
  Improving and expanding water services delivery	Fostering the integrated management of water resources	Promoting a national focus on water sector reform
  Conserving water	Promoting regional cooperation
  Fostering participation
  Improving governance



• ADB and its DMC clients connected many of Asia's poor to water services while stimulating water conservation among suppliers and users.
• Governments experienced positive results when they involved stakeholders in their bids to reform and improve the governance of their respective water sectors.
• Introducing integrated management of water resources and fostering transboundary water resources cooperation remain active challenges. Major water and land resources are generally treated as distinct and unrelated resources, although most DMCs have started viewing them within a river basin context.
• The policy's principal challenge was in getting DMCs to develop national water policies, laws, and other reforms that link water to national development goals.
• Of the water loans approved after the water policy's adoption, 54 percent were found to be consistent with the water policy, compared with just 10 percent of the water loans approved in the three-year period leading up to the policy's adoption.

• Policy Actions to Support the Asian Development Bank Water Policy “Water for All”
• Methodology and Scope of Review
• Overview of Water Sector Reforms in Developing Member Countries
• Achievements of Recently Approved Loan Projects (2001–2003)
• Private Sector Investment Facilities to the Water Sector
• Achievements of Recently Approved TAs (2001–2003)
• Achievements of Earlier Approved Loan Projects (1997–2000)
• Policy Actions with Low Achievement
• Assessment of Internal Asian Development Bank Policy Actions for Water Policy Implementation
• Impacts of Asian Development Bank Reorganization on Water Policy Implementation
• Impacts of the Cooperation Fund for the Water Sector on Water Policy Implementation