Delays in design of sanitation facilities: two sanitation projects fail to achieve initial targets

Two Pakistan projects, Rawalpindi environmental improvement and Balochistan devolved social services programme failed to achieve their initial targets due to delays in the design of sanitation facilities and lack of local government capacity.
This was stated in a paper titled, "leading factors of success and failure in Asian Development Bank urban sanitation projects", prepared by the Independent Evaluation Department (IED) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The report maintains that among the completed sanitation projects that had a less than overall satisfactory Project Completion Report (PCR) rating, four (one each from Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka and the PRC) were rated less effective and one (from Pakistan) was rated ineffective due its sanitation components.
In the Pakistan project, one of main reasons for the low rating was the lack of consensus between the various stakeholders at provincial and municipal levels on the scope of the proposed multi-tranche financing facility (MFF) coverage. The main implementing agency sought comprehensive and large support for various urban services, whereas, the provincial government preferred a more targeted approach of supporting only urban transport.
Rawalpindi environmental improvement project faced a range of issues, including weak coordination (alignment confusion with similar government sewerage projects and poor performance of the implementing agencies). As a result, outputs were incomplete: only 11 kilometers (km) of sewer were laid versus the 160km target. No sewage treatment plant (STP) was constructed due to confusion within the implementing agency, including design gaps and delayed land acquisition.
Further no major effort was made to realign the project during implementation to address the design gaps, mainly because of lack of ownership of the project by key stakeholders, internal friction between the key implementing agencies, and diminishing political commitment to local government and urban reforms proposed under the project.
The objective of the project was to improve living conditions, quality of life, and health of the people of Rawalpindi by improving water supply and sanitation facilities, solid waste management, wastewater treatment, and slaughterhouses.
The project design's subcomponent notably planned sewerage system included installing major sewerage networks consisting of: (a) laying about 160 kilometers (km) of sewerage network (trunk and area sewers) within the boundary limits of Rawal Town over 384 hectares (ha), and secondary and lateral sewers in the catchments of existing trunk sewers; (b) construction of a transfer and outfall sewer to the STP; (c) replacement of undersized sewers in identified areas; (d) environmental mitigation works upstream of Rawal Lake filtration plant; and (e) procurement of sewer cleaning equipment and machinery.
The performance of this subcomponent was unsatisfactory. At completion, the project had managed to lay only 11km of sewerage network. Further, undersized sewers were replaced for a length of 5km only. No work was undertaken on the secondary and lateral sewers in the catchment of existing sewers, a transfer/outfall sewer to the STP, or environmental mitigation.
The STP was to be constructed so it could treat projected flows of 199,000 m3 /day. The performance of this subcomponent was unsatisfactory as no physical work could be undertaken except for the acquisition of land for the STP. Initially, this was due to a major delay in land acquisition. This was followed by indecision on the alignment and size of the outfall sewer and the STP.
The outfall sewer passed through the domain of other agencies, including the Defence Housing Authority, Baharia Town, and the Cantonment Board; and there was no formal agreement with these agencies on the alignment of the outfall sewer or inclusion of these agencies (conveyance and treatment of their sewerage) in the scope of the outfall sewer and STP.
This resulted in extensive negotiations with these agencies in 2007 that did not conclude until project closure in 2009. The absence of an STP is expected to cause substantial downstream health and water pollution issues.
Under the slaughterhouse and public toilets component, the project was supposed to build (a) hygienic and environmentally acceptable slaughterhouse facilities on the premises of the existing Sihala slaughterhouse, and (b) about 15 public toilets. The operation and maintenance of the public toilets had to be outsourced to the private sector and revenues collected through user fees. The performance of this subcomponent was unsatisfactory. No work was undertaken for rehabilitation of the slaughterhouse because of a delay in the design of the facility by the consultant and lack of capacity of the City District Government in operating this facility. Against a target of 15 public toilets, the project constructed only 11. Of these, seven were outsourced to the private sector and four remained in the public domain (in public schools and parks).
Balochistan devolved social services programme outputs were mainly in policy and institutional strengthening. The performance grants system did not achieve a great deal due to a lack of absorptive capacity of local governments, indicating poor design and project quality at entry.
(i) The programme aimed to accelerate the province's progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the social sector targets of the government of Balochistan's poverty reduction strategy by utilizing opportunities to enhance the role of local governments in social service delivery provided by the Balochistan Local Government Ordinance, 2001.
(ii) The envisaged outputs were approved sector strategies for health, education, and water supply and sanitation-complete with approved expenditure-allocation norms in line with minimum standards for social sectors. These were only partly achieved for health and sanitation. Sector strategies for education and water supply were not finalized, and the expenditure allocation norms remained under revision. The envisaged improvement in the quality of social services was therefore unsuccessful.
(iii) According to the project's design and monitoring framework (DMF), the project impacts included an increase in access to improved sanitation from 67% in the Pakistan social and living standards measurement survey (PSLM) 2004-2005 to 80% in PSLM 2008-2009. Another target in the design and monitoring framework was: access to excreta disposal increased from 40% in 2004 to 56% in 2009. Outputs for the sanitation component were not articulated in the project completion report (PCR) and therefore it is not clear whether the project was on-site, off-site, or combined.