Activity

1. Feasibility Study

There are two main tools for the infrastructure project for planning and preparation prior the approval of project implementation. The feasibility study is the first tool that should provide technical and financial information, which is the basis for decision-making that should justify strategic impact and higher priority for funding compare to other project proposals. And a project appraisal is the second tool that should help to identify priorities for investments, based on cost-benefit analysis and other factors.

During 2016 – 2018, the Feasibility Study Guideline for the projects funding through the Infrastructure Fund was developed and approved by CAFI. And from 2019 several project concepts were prepared, and pilot projects were selected for FS implementation following new standards (water supply, public buildings, etc.).

The Feasibility study for strategic projects should help to ensure the quality of infrastructure and the best value for money. The Feasibility Study Guideline is designed for the executing and implementing agencies (Line Ministries), as well as for consultants with the purpose to outline the process of technical, financial, and environmental assessment for projects, financed through the IF. More importantly, with the feasibility study results, the government can consider investments from the Infrastructure Fund for the most strategic projects that contribute significantly to the social and economic development of the country.

3. Ex-Post evaluation

The Ex-Post Evaluation under the Infrastructure Fund is required for completed projects in order to utilize lessons learned and to accumulate the best practice to avoid the same mistakes and for effective implementation of projects in the future and to recommend new measures and improvements.

In 2019 – 2020, the Ex-Post Evaluation Guideline was prepared for the projects implemented during past years under the Infrastructure Fund. The outline of process of the Ex-Post Evaluation is shown above.

The ex-post evaluation approach for IF is based on 5 criteria, including (1) Relevance; (2) Effectiveness; (3) Efficiency; (4) Impact, and (5) Sustainability that internationally accepted and developed by the OECD. The figure below shows the algorithm of the Ex-Post Evaluation, logic frame and scoring approach.

Figure: Ex-Post Evaluation logic frame

2. Project Appraisal

The main purpose of the project appraisal is to identify major benefits of the projects, evaluate readiness of proposals based on multi-criteria analysis, and to rank the proposals based on the impact and readiness for funding and implementation. Project appraisal should help to select the best projects for investment taking into account the following: contribution to the SDP, economic viability, readiness of the project for funding. There are two key elements for project scoring and evaluation for the project appraisal:

  • Importance for development;
  • Readiness for funding.

The appraisal methodology is based on 8 multiple criteria for project evaluation, including the following:

  1.  Relation of the project or the project`s sector to the Strategic Development Plan;
  2.  Economic impact as measured by the economic internal rate of return;
  3.  Effectiveness of investment;
  4. Social impact as direct number of new jobs and indirect number of benefited population;
  5. Readiness for implementation as measured by requited environmental license;
  6. Dependence of the project on additional infrastructure for reasonable cost;
  7.  Readiness of the project for construction and availability of required documents such as concept design, feasibility study, detailed engineering design, and other related documents;
  8. Readiness of land for the project in terms of land availability for construction and assessment of requirements of possible resettlement under the project.

4. GIS Database

The Geographic Information System (GIS) is a tool that allows to create, store and analyze spatial and non-spatial data, and share the results as a map. The purpose of the GIS database for the Infrastructure Fund is to visualize the project information, location, and the financial records on the map for better monitoring, and budget allocation in terms of the regional balance, better transparency, and accountability. The GIS Database is also a tool and valuable source of information for the project planning for the Infrastructure Fund.

As part of the technical support to CAFI, the GIS Unit was established under the Fund in 2016. By the end of 2019, the information from 12 municipalities for most IF projects have already been collected, including coordinates with the exact locations of each project as the key element of the IF Geospatial Database System. The figure below shows the example of the IF project location using the GIS Database information system.

Further, the IF Geospatial Database System will be integrated with the national geospatial data platform (NSDI) to enhance and support E-Government initiative as well as interconnected with the government portal “Sistema Dalan Ba Futuru” for better project monitoring and budgeting. The integration of the GIS Database with other information systems will contribute to the government’s long term plans to improve electronic public services