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Evaluation of Timor-Leste Water Supply and Sanitation Rehabilitation Projects Phase I and II
Completed 2004

The Project was part of a massive international effort to redress the destruction and dislocation that accompanied Indonesia’s withdrawal from the country in 1999.

   Summary of Findings

The project produced many outputs, but sustainable operation of water supply schemes is problematic.

For urban schemes, the main problems are inadequate water sources and a lack of maintenance and operation expenditure. For rural schemes, the main problem is the lack of viability of the community management model.

The project did little in the area of sanitation. On the other hand, the physical infrastructure of the Water Supply and Sanitation Service was reestablished in the capital and all 12 district towns.

The project contributed to developing the capacity of staff. Many planning documents were produced, but the large number of these was beyond the absorptive capacity of the emerging government.

The community management model has not proven to be sustainable because it did not take account of actual social relations.

There were strong political pressures to spread resources widely and to produce results quickly, which reinforced the sense of urgency that prevailed.

While there was an emergency caused by the post-referendum violence and destruction, by the time the project got under way (some 15 months after the destruction) there was no urgent requirement to address water supply and sanitation needs, even though a strong development need existed. The undesirable effects of the sense of urgency, and pressure to spread resources widely include

• An excessive focus, with insufficient thought to the new context, on the rehabilitation of systems designed under the Indonesian administration, which consequently led to insufficient consideration of options.
• A mind-set that centered on results being achieved quickly to address the emergency.
• A failure to reimpose charges for water at the time of rehabilitation of urban services, which makes doing so now politically difficult.
• The distribution of available funds across many subprojects imposed strong budget constraints on each subproject.
• An emphasis on delivering results to address the emergency meant action took precedence over building local capacity, although the achievements in terms of capacity building were significant.

While the Project was formulated and implemented prior to the adoption of ADB’s current disaster and emergency assistance policy, the experience provides useful lessons for dealing with post-disaster development.

ADB needs to ensure that interventions carried out in an emergency situation are consistent with sound development. There may be a need to separate the emergency response (which needs to take place quickly) and the development intervention, rather than trying to combine the two.