Description

Background

This country assistance program evaluation assesses the performance of ADB's country strategies and assistance programs for Cambodia from 1998 to 2008. It takes note of, and extends on, the findings and recommendations of an earlier country assistance program evaluation completed in 2004, providing key lessons and recommendations for ADB's future programs in Cambodia.

Since ADB resumed assistance to Cambodia in 1992, it has approved a total of $1.3 billion in loans, grants, and technical assistance until end-2008. ADB has supported eight to nine sectors throughout the evaluation period, with the two largest shares belonging to transport (25%), and agriculture and rural development (20%).

Key findings

Overall, ADB's assistance program to Cambodia during the evaluation period is rated successful, combining the strategy level top-down (successful) and program/sector level bottom-up (partly successful, high side) performance ratings. However, ADB assistance did not receive a highly successful rating in any of the sector assessments, suggesting room for improvement.

In general, ADB has been a constant presence in and a large source of funds for Cambodia over the evaluation period. These are the areas of strong performance:

• Investment in physical assets with sector reforms boosted connectivity, lowered production costs, and encouraged foreign direct investment.
• Sustained financial sector reform, microfinance, and small and medium enterprise development supported growth from domestic sourcesSupport to agriculture and rural infrastructure, despite implementation difficulties, paid off in the form of higher yields and extended markets.
• Assistance in the education sector helped increase enrollment rates and provided a useful test of the sector-wide approach to assistance.
• Operations in the Greater Mekong Subregion enhanced connectivity and information exchange among countries in the subregion.
• ADB operations were also an important conduit for cofinancing by other agencies under the project modality.

Lessons identified

• Overall development strategy involves risk
• Early, sustained, and responsive involvement pays off
• Realistic designs matter
• Coherence and selectivity take work
• Good practices for sector reform pay off
• Advancing agriculture and rural development requires better diagnostic work and simple implementation arrangements

Recommendations

Following are recommendations to consider before, or in preparing for, ADB's next country partnership strategy for Cambodia:

• promote private sector-led growth and income generation through improved infrastructure services;
• focus on fewer subsectors;
• improve ADB efficiency and internal and subregional synergies through better planning coordination and institutional capacity building;
• explore other financing modalities, including private sector operations investments, to meet evolving development needs;
• foster good governance standards; and
• improve ADB service delivery, through strengthened partnership and delegation.

Contents

• Executive Summary
• Background
• Development Context and Government Priorities
• Asian Development Bank's Country Strategy and Performance—Top-down Assessment
• Sector Results and Performance—Bottom-up Assessment
• Overall Performance Assessment and Rating
• Finding, Lessons, and Recommendations