Brazil

Ratings for the Sergipe State Integrated Project Rural Poverty for Brazil were as follows: overall outcome was moderately unsatisfactory, the risk to development outcome... Show More + was substantial, and both the Bank and the borrower performance were moderately unsatisfactory. Some important project lessons learned were: (1) Targeting goes well beyond ensuring that project benefits reach the neediest. It is also a function of matching subprojects to communities' financial, managerial and technical capacity, and their knowledge of local conditions, in the equation supporting approval. (2) Fomenting community demand without commensurate capacity or resources to filter, evaluate, approve and finance the resulting proposals serves no useful purpose. In this case it was the outcome of poorly-designed information campaigns and well-intentioned councils without guidance on the financing likely to be available in a given year. (3) The inclusion of environmental subprojects implies a significant task in a Community-driven Development (CDD) context of information dissemination, technical assistance and awareness-building. (4) The sourcing and quality of technical assistance is as important as its financing and needs attention from the earliest stages of project development. (5) Cross sector integration/leveraging is a complex, challenging and long-term process intended to maximize the cost-effectiveness and impact of development/poverty reduction programs and policies. (6) The Project re-confirmed the longstanding lesson of CDD, that beneficiary involvement throughout the subproject cycle is essential for suitable, well-targeted and sustainable subprojects. Show Less -

Ratings for the Brasilia Environmentally Sustainable Project for Brazil were as follows: outcomes were unsatisfactory; risk to development outcome was substantial; Bank... Show More + performance was moderately unsatisfactory and borrower performance was unsatisfactory. Some lessons learned includes: as part of project preparation, more emphasis should be put on assessing institutional capacity and designing arrangements and mitigation measures to carry out resettlement. Urban upgrading projects are best managed by one agency with delegated authority for all activities within the target area. The presence of an effective grievance redress mechanism is critical to improve development impact by minimizing potential impact on beneficiaries especially in cases of resettlement. The construction of resettlement housing should be prioritized in the chronogram of major works and under the control of the implementing agency. Resettlement options should enable choice differentiated resettlement solutions, and open and frequent consultation with affected families is essential. Resettlement activities must be closely linked to the control of new irregular settlements. The Bank's safeguards policy is not always easy to implement in middle income countries that have their own policies which do not necessarily coincide with the Bank's. Although an integrated approach to environmental sanitation is considered good practice, it may be too complex for some clients. The assessment of political economy issues should be a key part of the preparation in complex/integrated development projects. Show Less -