12 July 2004	Monday	23 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

The multilateral Asian Development Bank (ADB) has offered several attractive packages for different development sectors.

In addition, it announced a three-year (2005-2007) Rs. 12.6 billion funding programme for Pakistan to help improve the country's ageing infrastructure and assistance to few social sectors in dire straits.

On the face of it, this approach of addressing development issues seem to be very attractive. However this is not the first time that the ADB has decided to support the country. Many a programmes and projects of high funding have been undertaken in the past.

And unfortunately very few have been able to contribute in any meaningful manner to the sector or area in question. According to a recent research study conducted by two research organizations, Environmental Defence and ADB Watch, the results do not match with the project/programme plans. Most of these outcomes are verified through ADB's own records.

Pakistan has been one of the biggest borrower from the ADB, second only to Indonesia. Due to its current geo-political status granted by the US, the donors are all too happy to extend a high volume of credit.

Thus the ADB has earmarked $ 2.4 billion to be released between 2003 and 2005. This aspect must be considered that Pakistan is not yet totally out of debt trap, as is casually potrayed by the regime. In 2002, Pakistan had $ 32 billion as the overall external debt.

Of this value, $ 8 billion were owed to the World Bank while $ 6.5 billion to the ADB. If one goes by the findings of internal auditors of the ADB who claim to find 40 percent of the projects as completely unsuccessful, then $ 2.6 billion went down the drain. This figure corresponds to the ADB lending only. What happened to other donors funded projects including the World Bank may be any body's guess.

According to the data released by the Operations and Evaluation Department of the ADB, Pakistan received 217 loans for projects in different sectors. Some of these projects were rated as successful.

For instance in the case of 'Second On-Farm Management Project', the bank auditors reported success despite a few flaws that were observed. This project was focused to increase the overall productivity, employment opportunities and income level of various locations in southern Punjab such as Rajanpur, Muzzaffargarh and DG Khan.

It successfully dealt with the issues of water logging and salinity which had caused a great deal of harm to the local communities. Out of an allocated $ 28.5 million, it utilized $ 27.6 million.

Some other success ratings included South Rohri Fresh Ground Water Irrigation Project and Balochistan Fisheries Development Project. Unsuccessful project included Faisalabad Water Supply and Sewerage Project and Karachi Urban Development Project.

In the views of the auditors, the project planning did not involve the potential beneficiaries of these projects. Several design flaws were also apparent such as lack of proper sewerage treatment options in KUDP and incongruent volume calculations in the case of Faisalabad project.

Sustainability remained a constrained parameter especially in the laying of locality scale infrastructure. The ADB invested in many development sectors including agriculture, education, health, urban development, water supply and sanitation and finance.

While education and health care may be considered as partly successful, water and sanitation as well as urban development were reported to be unsuccessful. Project design shortcomings, absence of stakeholders' participation, cost overruns, time losses and negative environmental impacts were some reasons outlined through studies.

Lack of a scientific performance indicators also cause ambiguities. It may also be noted that these studies have been done by the banks department through their own procedures.

There may be many independent researches done by various organizations from different perspectives. It will be worth while to analyse feedback from each of such studies to obtain a balanced conclusion.

Support by donor agencies, both through their own programmes or through requests and submissions of proposals, need to be assessed very carefully. There are several ground realities in the development sectors which can not be denied.

One, the magnitude and number of development projects that require to be undertaken on a priority basis are sizeable. They are not at all commensurate to the locally/nationally allocated development funds.

Two, non-availability of adequate funds is not the whole issue. In many cases, institutional capacity, technical and managerial resources are also not locally available.

In such a situation, only money cannot bring about the desired results. Dollars can surely create a good fishing net for skilled fisherman - not the fisherman himself!

Three, donor agencies are the organizations that function independent of the recipient countries. Their ultimate target is to have an impressive record or annual report fulfilling their own criteria. It is not necessary that their objectives and approach would always match with the countries in need of development finances.

Four, donor agencies are controlled by the lone super power and the industrialized countries that lend the capital for disbursement. It is obvious that they shall have the right to prevail under most situations, if not all. And five, the administrations and governments that negotiate with such agencies have their own ulterior motives. In most situations, the concerned officials are aware about impending failure of a project or programme funded by a donor.

Yet they still go ahead for reasons of their own. Personal gains, obtaining a few cheap stints to seek popularity and clandestine linkages with donor agencies for future sojourns sometime evolve into incestuous relationships. Episode of a privatization attempt involving a public water utility in 1995-96 is an example.

A rational approach towards the multitude of developmental problems can evolve through considering few pre-requisites. Foremost issue to be tackled is about institutional strengthening through local means.

This implies that different tiers of administrations must become technically competent and sound in management practices towards their routine working. Basic tasks such as need analysis, organizing and analyzing baseline information, planning and project design are few areas where human resources need to be mobilized.

Secondly, the potential affectees of every project must be involved with the process at every stage of work. Theoretically, with a three tier governmental system, this is achievable.

It must be understood that stakeholders' involvement is a political process. It must be allowed to take root positively. And thirdly, lessons learnt from the past experiences must be considered before making the next move. It shall amount to a most unfortunate situation if a failed project or programme is repeated without any modification in its design and procedure application.