Uruguay

The objective of the Third Basic Education Quality Improvement Project is to increase equity, quality, and efficiency in providing preschool and primary education. The... Show More + reallocation is necessary to finance: (i) existing and newly created additional in-service teacher training courses, which require (a) additional expenditures such as the per-diem and travel cost of the trainees, rental of facilities, seminar or workshop materials, and administrative support, and (b) the contracting of more teacher trainers than estimated at the beginning of the Project; and (ii) additional technical advisers hired to work in the preparation and supervision of works at full-time schools. Show Less -

Ratings for the Transport Infrastructure Maintenance and Rural Access Project for Uruguay were as follows: Outcomes were moderately satisfactory; risk to development... Show More + outcome was moderate; Bank performance was satisfactory; and borrower performance was also satisfactory. Some lessons learned includes: Project Development Objectives (PDOs) and PDO indicators should be commensurable to what a project can realistically attain. Both the PDO and the corresponding PDO indicators were defined too broadly, given the scale and scope of the Project, and with too optimistic targets. A US$70 million specific investment loan can contribute to address road maintenance issues but cannot be expected to impact sector-wide trends. This should be adequately reflected in terms of project design, ensuring that objectives and indicators are coherent with the project's capacity to deliver. If needed, complementary instruments should be adopted to address broader sector-wide issues identified by the borrower. Fast-track preparation projects should include significant flexibility in their design so as to become quickly operational: although the project was prepared rapidly, this implied that some of the preparatory work typically: engineering designs that should have been undertaken prior to project approval were actually carried out in the first years of implementation. An early understanding of the particularities of a market can avoid procurement-related delays further down the road. In the case of this operation, an earlier identification of the specific characteristics of the Uruguayan construction market, and the consequent adaptation of standard Bank qualification criteria applied in bidding documents, could have avoided some of the delays encountered during implementation. Ensuring adequate financing for maintenance remains a challenge and future Bank engagement in the sector should focus on this issue. Sector financing still faces strong restrictions; budget allocations cannot account for sector needs. Show Less -