ADB’S FACES OFINNOVATION

ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

June 2020

AcknowledgmentsThis report was possible due to the collective efforts of Jason Bogovich, Mariya Khatiwada, Neal Moore, Jane Parry, Susann Roth, Maribeth Cesicar-Sanvictores, Keisuke Taketani, Ajit Sharma, and Michael Babista and his team.

 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)© 2020 ADB. The CC license does not apply to non-ADB copyright materials in this publication.https://www.adb.org/terms-use#openaccess http://www.adb.org/publications/corrigendaPublication Stock No. ARM200179-2 pubsmarketing@adb.orgAll photos by ADB.

CONTENTS

WHAT DOES INNOVATION MEAN TO YOU?

03 Innovation powers development in Asia and the Pacific

04 An innovative ADB

FACES OF INNOVATION AT ADB

06 2020 ADB Innovation Fair08 How to innovate:

Tips from ADB’s Very Innovative Persons09 Brilliant Failures

ADB’S VERY INNOVATIVE PERSONS

11 David Elzinga 13 Veronica Joffre 15 Rouselle Lavado17 Peter Marro 19 Inez Mikkelsen-Lopez21 Steve Peters23 Neeta Pokhrel

01

05

11

FACES OF INNOVATION AT THE INNOVATION FAIR MARKETPLACE

Financial Products and Solutions26 Accelerating green infrastructure in Southeast Asia27 Community resilience through microfinance28 Local-currency lending for irrigation rehabilitation29 Public–private partnership for ASEAN30 SDG Indonesia One–Green Finance Facility31 Skills for competitiveness in Cambodia32 Trade Finance Program

Technology33 Advanced technology for power transmission34 Climate resiliency in infrastructure operation and

maintenance: Use of weather analytics35 Decision-making for climate change36 Engine block heater technology37 Financial Management Information Dashboard38 Flood forecasting in Kolkata39 Geospatial web platform: Open source, cloud

hosted40 Integrated water resources development in

Afghanistan41 Nature-based infrastructure42 Open innovation and crowdsourcing platform43 PPFD Digital Assistant43 Smart transport in the People’s Republic of China

Knowledge Partnerships45 Earthquake-resilient schools in Nepal46 The graduation approach to poverty reduction47 Youth for Asia48 Innovation, technology, and futures and foresight49 Smart ways to share knowledge

Implementation and Internal Processes50 Big data and analytics for decision support system

in economic corridor development and beyond51 Data science and robotics for audit52 Harvesting tacit knowledge using digital data53 Safeguards tracking system54 Small towns water supply system55 Using gaming to teach anticorruption methods56 Well-being and degrowth: Moving beyond gross

domestic product

25

CONTENTS

WHAT DOES INNOVATION MEAN TO YOU?

03 Innovation powers development in Asia and the Pacific

04 An innovative ADB

FACES OF INNOVATION AT ADB

06 2020 ADB Innovation Fair08 How to innovate:

Tips from ADB’s Very Innovative Persons09 Brilliant Failures

ADB’S VERY INNOVATIVE PERSONS

11 David Elzinga 13 Veronica Joffre 15 Rouselle Lavado17 Peter Marro 19 Inez Mikkelsen-Lopez21 Steve Peters23 Neeta Pokhrel

01

05

11

FACES OF INNOVATION AT THE INNOVATION FAIR MARKETPLACE

Financial Products and Solutions26 Accelerating green infrastructure in Southeast Asia27 Community resilience through microfinance28 Local-currency lending for irrigation rehabilitation29 Public–private partnership for ASEAN30 SDG Indonesia One–Green Finance Facility31 Skills for competitiveness in Cambodia32 Trade Finance Program

Technology33 Advanced technology for power transmission34 Climate resiliency in infrastructure operation and

maintenance: Use of weather analytics35 Decision-making for climate change36 Engine block heater technology37 Financial Management Information Dashboard38 Flood forecasting in Kolkata39 Geospatial web platform: Open source, cloud

hosted40 Integrated water resources development in

Afghanistan41 Nature-based infrastructure42 Open innovation and crowdsourcing platform43 PPFD Digital Assistant43 Smart transport in the People’s Republic of China

Knowledge Partnerships45 Earthquake-resilient schools in Nepal46 The graduation approach to poverty reduction47 Youth for Asia48 Innovation, technology, and futures and foresight49 Smart ways to share knowledge

Implementation and Internal Processes50 Big data and analytics for decision support system

in economic corridor development and beyond51 Data science and robotics for audit52 Harvesting tacit knowledge using digital data53 Safeguards tracking system54 Small towns water supply system55 Using gaming to teach anticorruption methods56 Well-being and degrowth: Moving beyond gross

domestic product

25

1 2

What does innovation mean to you?

PROCESS

Superior method of worke-Procurement, road asset management system, integrated solutions

PRODUCT

Reducing the complexity and costSmartphone, e-vehicle, drone,single-serve,co�ee maker

SERVICES

Enhancement around processes and productsClient support, clientengagement

Transformational Innovation

Incremental Innovation

Configuration O�ering Experience

Innovation means different things to different people. For some, it means broad technical advances; for others, it means something new and different or the application of knowledge to solve problems. Innovation happens along a continuum, from incremental or disruptive ideas to transformative ones that change our whole way of thinking.

Innovation doesn’t have to come in the form of earth-shattering

discoveries. It can happen anywhere, and it doesn’t always mean a new idea: sometimes the innovation is simply taking an existing idea and trying it out in a new way or in a new setting that no one’s ever thought of before.

Innovation is not always elaborate. It can lie in simplicity. And it needs to solve a concrete problem.

Source: Adapted from The Ten Types of Innovation.

3 4

The unprecedented pace and extent of development in Asia and the Pacific over the past 5 decades have, in large part, been due to the adoption of technology, first through technology transfer and then through direct investment in developing the technology itself. It’s obvious that new technologies are having a greater-than-ever impact on societies and can be harnessed to be both positively disruptive and transformational.

Developing countries in Asia and the Pacific need new ways to create value because they can no longer rely on exploitation of natural resources to maintain the pace of growth they need. They must find new and faster ways to develop human capital and benefit from their demographic dividend.

Innovation powers

development in Asia

and the Pacific

Unlike the countries that developed before them, they need to grow in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way. Developing countries have no choice but to adopt and generate new technologies and knowledge efficiently and effectively to deal with the many challenges of a rapidly changing global development context.

The question is no longer if, but how ADB should advance the innovation agenda. This is clearly reflected in ADB’s Strategy 2030, which articulates ADB’s role in promoting, facilitating, and driving innovation. ADB plays a crucial role in ensuring that its members not only have access to the funding they need to make transformational change but also to the knowledge

and expertise that add value. So, we too need to change. At ADB, innovation simply means this: change that adds value for clients.

Developing countries in

Asia and the Pacific need new ways to create value

An

innovative

ADB

Innovation happens when it’s woven into the corporate culture. A culture of innovation means that it’s part of the day to day and embedded into performance assessments and how the success of projects is measured. Charting an innovation path requires thinking outside the box and an ability to see change as an opportunity and not as a threat.

Innovation achievements are celebrated but failures are also examined and openly discussed. The only way people can come up with new ideas is if they’re not afraid to fail. Innovative organizations have a mechanism to measure failure and a process to identify the conditions of success. Then it’s learning, not failure.

ADB introduced the Brilliant Failures discussion series in 2019, which provides a safe space to share failures and provide learning opportunities. The series signals the culture change happening at ADB. People innovate best when they are challenged. Challenging staff to innovate has been proven to be the key to innovation. If tedious business processes hold staff members back, they can’t innovate. Globally, corporations and academic institutions are setting up collaboration spaces for innovation, and some of the most innovative companies are characterized by a focus on merit, knowledge, creativity, collaboration, and ability to think outside the box.

3 4

The unprecedented pace and extent of development in Asia and the Pacific over the past 5 decades have, in large part, been due to the adoption of technology, first through technology transfer and then through direct investment in developing the technology itself. It’s obvious that new technologies are having a greater-than-ever impact on societies and can be harnessed to be both positively disruptive and transformational.

Developing countries in Asia and the Pacific need new ways to create value because they can no longer rely on exploitation of natural resources to maintain the pace of growth they need. They must find new and faster ways to develop human capital and benefit from their demographic dividend.

Innovation powers

development in Asia

and the Pacific

Unlike the countries that developed before them, they need to grow in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way. Developing countries have no choice but to adopt and generate new technologies and knowledge efficiently and effectively to deal with the many challenges of a rapidly changing global development context.

The question is no longer if, but how ADB should advance the innovation agenda. This is clearly reflected in ADB’s Strategy 2030, which articulates ADB’s role in promoting, facilitating, and driving innovation. ADB plays a crucial role in ensuring that its members not only have access to the funding they need to make transformational change but also to the knowledge

and expertise that add value. So, we too need to change. At ADB, innovation simply means this: change that adds value for clients.

Developing countries in

Asia and the Pacific need new ways to create value

An

innovative

ADB

Innovation happens when it’s woven into the corporate culture. A culture of innovation means that it’s part of the day to day and embedded into performance assessments and how the success of projects is measured. Charting an innovation path requires thinking outside the box and an ability to see change as an opportunity and not as a threat.

Innovation achievements are celebrated but failures are also examined and openly discussed. The only way people can come up with new ideas is if they’re not afraid to fail. Innovative organizations have a mechanism to measure failure and a process to identify the conditions of success. Then it’s learning, not failure.

ADB introduced the Brilliant Failures discussion series in 2019, which provides a safe space to share failures and provide learning opportunities. The series signals the culture change happening at ADB. People innovate best when they are challenged. Challenging staff to innovate has been proven to be the key to innovation. If tedious business processes hold staff members back, they can’t innovate. Globally, corporations and academic institutions are setting up collaboration spaces for innovation, and some of the most innovative companies are characterized by a focus on merit, knowledge, creativity, collaboration, and ability to think outside the box.

5 6

Faces of Innovation at ADB

Across ADB, typically with little fanfare, innovators are quietly figuring out how to apply innovative solutions to some of their clients’ most intractable problems, from governance and infrastructure finance down to community, grassroots development issues such as water and sanitation.

It’s time to shine the spotlight on ADB’s innovators. This e-book is your entry ticket to the world of innovation at ADB. You can meet some of our outstanding innovators, learn about dozens of projects under way across the region, and see what happened at ADB’s first Innovation Fair. You can get a taste of each project, learn the basic facts, or go deeper, down to the project documents if you wish. Innovation is everybody’s business, and, at ADB, we’re hard at work making it ours.

6 7

ADB’s first Innovation Fair, held at its headquarters on 10 January, brought together over 460 staff members to learn from expert speakers, showcase their own innovations, and share ideas.

ADB’s Very Innovative

Persons

Innovation is happening everywhere within ADB, and the stories of innovation need to be told. Eight Very Innovative Persons gave the Innovation Fair audience a taste of how they’re achieving outstanding results through innovative ideas.Watch their TEDx-style talks here.

Innovation Fair Marketplace

Thirty teams with bright ideas and successful innovations showcased their work at the bustling Innovation Fair Marketplace. Read about their projects here.

More bright ideas: Posters from the Innovation Fair

With so much innovation under way at ADB, it was impossible to accommodate everyone in the Innovation Fair Marketplace. Projects cover the whole spectrum of ADB’s work, showcasing innovation from every region. You can see the poster-only presentations from the fair here.

2020 ADB Innovation Fair

Talks and conversations

Bambang Susantono, ADB’s vice-president for knowledge management, talked about how ADB is striving to help its clients innovate. “I truly believe that people with true passion can change the world for the better. New and creative ideas come to people who work hard with patience and persistence.”Hear his welcome remarks.

ADB President Takehiko Nakao sat down with Susann Roth, ADB’s principal knowledge sharing and services specialist, to talk about how technology and innovation have been the backbone of development in Asia and the Pacific and what ADB’s role is in the future of innovation.1“ADB needs innovation. ADB must continue to reinvent itself, otherwise it cannot survive and it cannot be as relevant, as important an institution as it is today,” President Nakao said.Listen to the conversation.

John Rubio, Facebook’s Philippines country head, invited the audience through the door to see how innovation powers one of the world’s leading companies.“Innovation is everybody’s business. It should become ingrained in your culture so that everyone talks about your values, your innovation, your processes.”Hear his talk.

Innovation Fair 2020 Highlights Reel

1 ADB President Takehiko Nakao stepped down as president on 16 January 2020.

6 7

ADB’s first Innovation Fair, held at its headquarters on 10 January, brought together over 460 staff members to learn from expert speakers, showcase their own innovations, and share ideas.

ADB’s Very Innovative

Persons

Innovation is happening everywhere within ADB, and the stories of innovation need to be told. Eight Very Innovative Persons gave the Innovation Fair audience a taste of how they’re achieving outstanding results through innovative ideas.Watch their TEDx-style talks here.

Innovation Fair Marketplace

Thirty teams with bright ideas and successful innovations showcased their work at the bustling Innovation Fair Marketplace. Read about their projects here.

More bright ideas: Posters from the Innovation Fair

With so much innovation under way at ADB, it was impossible to accommodate everyone in the Innovation Fair Marketplace. Projects cover the whole spectrum of ADB’s work, showcasing innovation from every region. You can see the poster-only presentations from the fair here.

2020 ADB Innovation Fair

Talks and conversations

Bambang Susantono, ADB’s vice-president for knowledge management, talked about how ADB is striving to help its clients innovate. “I truly believe that people with true passion can change the world for the better. New and creative ideas come to people who work hard with patience and persistence.”Hear his welcome remarks.

ADB President Takehiko Nakao sat down with Susann Roth, ADB’s principal knowledge sharing and services specialist, to talk about how technology and innovation have been the backbone of development in Asia and the Pacific and what ADB’s role is in the future of innovation.1“ADB needs innovation. ADB must continue to reinvent itself, otherwise it cannot survive and it cannot be as relevant, as important an institution as it is today,” President Nakao said.Listen to the conversation.

John Rubio, Facebook’s Philippines country head, invited the audience through the door to see how innovation powers one of the world’s leading companies.“Innovation is everybody’s business. It should become ingrained in your culture so that everyone talks about your values, your innovation, your processes.”Hear his talk.

Innovation Fair 2020 Highlights Reel

1 ADB President Takehiko Nakao stepped down as president on 16 January 2020.

8 9

How to innovate: Tips from ADB’s Very Innovative Persons

Listen carefully

Listening lasts longer than a single conversation. It can take months of visits to ensure that the country counterparts feel heard and are reassured that you understand the problems they are trying to solve.

Bring all stakeholders

together

Engaging with the people most likely to benefit from an innovation is a good place to start the convening process. Then the conversation has to be expanded to include all stakeholders, government counterparts, development partners, and the private sector. This requires a lot of patience—and persistence—to create the necessary level of trust.

Align their vision

To take the risk and try something new, people have to be inspired and have a vision of what the outcome can be. If you can show them a pilot or an example of the program or project in action, it can help them form a vision of what innovation can do for them.

Provide examples of what works

elsewhere

Even when people are on board with an innovative idea, there’s a fear of precedence. That’s where data come in: if you can show them that it worked elsewhere, they are more able to shed their fears and biases.

Brilliant Failures

Sharing knowledge across countries and sectors is not just a matter of showcasing success stories. It’s also important to share mistakes, lessons, adaptation, and opportunities for innovation. Adapting a concept developed by the nongovernment organization Engineers Without Borders, ADB initiated a conversation in ADB to also put the spotlight on things that went wrong, under the theme, Brilliant Failures.

Innovation Speakers Series: Brilliant Failures

Launched with high- level support in August 2019, Brilliant Failures Week invited speakers from management and the Board to tell the audience about a project that didn’t go right. In the process, they explored the tension between the need for innovation and the tendency to avoid all risk of failure, and offered the audience insight into what a productive, intelligent relationship

with failure looks like. They also highlighted how dealing with failures shapes one’s personality as a leader. Speakers had the opportunity to articulate changes they would like to see at ADB to foster a culture of Intelligent Failure.

The series continued with a follow-up session in December 2019 with ADB’s transport and urban sectors.

Innovation Speakers Series: Davao Public Transportation

Modernization Project

8 9

How to innovate: Tips from ADB’s Very Innovative Persons

Listen carefully

Listening lasts longer than a single conversation. It can take months of visits to ensure that the country counterparts feel heard and are reassured that you understand the problems they are trying to solve.

Bring all stakeholders

together

Engaging with the people most likely to benefit from an innovation is a good place to start the convening process. Then the conversation has to be expanded to include all stakeholders, government counterparts, development partners, and the private sector. This requires a lot of patience—and persistence—to create the necessary level of trust.

Align their vision

To take the risk and try something new, people have to be inspired and have a vision of what the outcome can be. If you can show them a pilot or an example of the program or project in action, it can help them form a vision of what innovation can do for them.

Provide examples of what works

elsewhere

Even when people are on board with an innovative idea, there’s a fear of precedence. That’s where data come in: if you can show them that it worked elsewhere, they are more able to shed their fears and biases.

Brilliant Failures

Sharing knowledge across countries and sectors is not just a matter of showcasing success stories. It’s also important to share mistakes, lessons, adaptation, and opportunities for innovation. Adapting a concept developed by the nongovernment organization Engineers Without Borders, ADB initiated a conversation in ADB to also put the spotlight on things that went wrong, under the theme, Brilliant Failures.

Innovation Speakers Series: Brilliant Failures

Launched with high- level support in August 2019, Brilliant Failures Week invited speakers from management and the Board to tell the audience about a project that didn’t go right. In the process, they explored the tension between the need for innovation and the tendency to avoid all risk of failure, and offered the audience insight into what a productive, intelligent relationship

with failure looks like. They also highlighted how dealing with failures shapes one’s personality as a leader. Speakers had the opportunity to articulate changes they would like to see at ADB to foster a culture of Intelligent Failure.

The series continued with a follow-up session in December 2019 with ADB’s transport and urban sectors.

Innovation Speakers Series: Davao Public Transportation

Modernization Project

11 12

ADB’s Very Innovative Persons

11 12

“If I bring my best to any task, I can bring impact and innovation to the work I do at ADB.”

David Elzinga Senior Energy SpecialistSustainable Development and Climate Change Department

A fresh way to talk about clean energy

The challenge: Make the Asia Clean Energy Forum—an already successful and well-attended event—better, more relevant, and more productive.

The innovation: Bring in partners from outside the energy sector, introduce new ways of meeting the right people, and ensure women are properly represented, both on stage and in the audience.

by over 1,000 people, but it wasn’t exactly the on-the-ground work in development that I was hoping for,” he recalls. “But then, I reflected on the energy sector, and how, over the past 2 decades, we’d seen some incredible developments. Renewable energy prices have come down by an order of magnitude, for example. At the same time, here in Asia we still have hundreds of millions of people without access to electricity and over a billion people without access to clean cooking. And I thought, how can I do something with impact at ACEF?”

David started by reaching out to colleagues in other sectors, such as urban development, agriculture, transport, water, and the environment, and asked them to come alongside the energy sector and help improve the conference. This made perfect sense to him: a waste-to-energy project, for example, can be stymied by failure to navigate municipal regulations; a wind energy project requires data on bird migration patterns to mitigate its environmental impact; and a successful hydro project needs to ensure irrigation issues are solved.

“These partners from other departments brought real substance, and they also helped us find ways to tell ADB’s story better, within the conference itself,” says David.

At the conference, David brought in clean energy entrepreneurs to come and tell ADB what they’re doing. But to ensure everyone met as many people as possible, the meetings were limited to only 6 minutes each, just enough time for both sides to figure out if they wanted to have a more in-depth conversation at a

later date. This event, named Dim Sum with Clean Energy Entrepreneurs, was highly attended, had lively and animated discussion, and avoided the scourge of death by PowerPoint.

“This part of the forum enabled people to really learn about different approaches and different ways of doing things. Over 400 people came to this event and real deals came out of it for entrepreneurs and for our developing member countries,” says David.

The conference organizers made a point of actively engaging with women, as speakers and attendees. There were no men-only panels, 50% of the keynote speakers and panelists were women, and overall attendance by women was 40%, up from 18% the year before.

David’s already thinking about the 2020 event and how to build on past success and make it even better than last year’s. “We want to have some fun, do something different, take a risk. And the things that went well? We just need to do them again.”

Watch David Elzinga’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more:https://www.asiacleanenergyforum.org/

The story: As an engineer, there’s nothing David Elzinga likes more than to get practical, impactful stuff done. In 2018, he was excited to put his energy engineering experience to use.

Leading a conference wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

“I was asked to lead the Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF), which was a well-respected, well-attended event, attended

11 12

“If I bring my best to any task, I can bring impact and innovation to the work I do at ADB.”

David Elzinga Senior Energy SpecialistSustainable Development and Climate Change Department

A fresh way to talk about clean energy

The challenge: Make the Asia Clean Energy Forum—an already successful and well-attended event—better, more relevant, and more productive.

The innovation: Bring in partners from outside the energy sector, introduce new ways of meeting the right people, and ensure women are properly represented, both on stage and in the audience.

by over 1,000 people, but it wasn’t exactly the on-the-ground work in development that I was hoping for,” he recalls. “But then, I reflected on the energy sector, and how, over the past 2 decades, we’d seen some incredible developments. Renewable energy prices have come down by an order of magnitude, for example. At the same time, here in Asia we still have hundreds of millions of people without access to electricity and over a billion people without access to clean cooking. And I thought, how can I do something with impact at ACEF?”

David started by reaching out to colleagues in other sectors, such as urban development, agriculture, transport, water, and the environment, and asked them to come alongside the energy sector and help improve the conference. This made perfect sense to him: a waste-to-energy project, for example, can be stymied by failure to navigate municipal regulations; a wind energy project requires data on bird migration patterns to mitigate its environmental impact; and a successful hydro project needs to ensure irrigation issues are solved.

“These partners from other departments brought real substance, and they also helped us find ways to tell ADB’s story better, within the conference itself,” says David.

At the conference, David brought in clean energy entrepreneurs to come and tell ADB what they’re doing. But to ensure everyone met as many people as possible, the meetings were limited to only 6 minutes each, just enough time for both sides to figure out if they wanted to have a more in-depth conversation at a

later date. This event, named Dim Sum with Clean Energy Entrepreneurs, was highly attended, had lively and animated discussion, and avoided the scourge of death by PowerPoint.

“This part of the forum enabled people to really learn about different approaches and different ways of doing things. Over 400 people came to this event and real deals came out of it for entrepreneurs and for our developing member countries,” says David.

The conference organizers made a point of actively engaging with women, as speakers and attendees. There were no men-only panels, 50% of the keynote speakers and panelists were women, and overall attendance by women was 40%, up from 18% the year before.

David’s already thinking about the 2020 event and how to build on past success and make it even better than last year’s. “We want to have some fun, do something different, take a risk. And the things that went well? We just need to do them again.”

Watch David Elzinga’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more:https://www.asiacleanenergyforum.org/

The story: As an engineer, there’s nothing David Elzinga likes more than to get practical, impactful stuff done. In 2018, he was excited to put his energy engineering experience to use.

Leading a conference wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

“I was asked to lead the Asia Clean Energy Forum (ACEF), which was a well-respected, well-attended event, attended

13 14

“If you are feeling the pain and you have a solution in mind, I would say go for it, because ADB is the right place to just do it.”

Veronica Joffre Social Development Specialist for Gender and DevelopmentEast Asia Department

ADB gender mainstreaming data at your fingertips

The challenge: ADB has one of the most sophisticated approaches to mainstreaming gender in lending operations, but the data associated with it are hidden and disconnected.

The innovation: Set up an automated system that uses ADB digital infrastructure to capture and visualize results in gender mainstreaming in a

format that allows the user to zoom in and out by project, sector, and country, while tracking corporate results indicators in real time.

The story: Veronica Joffre wants to let you know that she’s not a techie: “I’m not a coder, or a millennial—but I am a user—just like you!" Her message is that as technology becomes more embedded

in our daily life, "we have to empower ourselves to own it, to solve our own very practical problems." Her message is a strong call for action to bring forward the innovator in each one of us.Veronica considers ADB’s work in gender mainstreaming to be ahead of the curve, with one of the most sophisticated categorization approaches and corporate targets for mainstreaming gender in lending operations. She joined ADB 2 years ago and was surprised when she realized that the results of these efforts were being captured manually, using Excel files, disconnected from each other.

“This can’t capture the richness, the essence of what we are doing, how we are changing lives through lending. This is critical, as much of the progress toward gender equality in recent years has been driven by data. We need to get the numbers, the evidence on what works, the progress so far, and what remains to be done,” Veronica says.

Veronica was delighted that management at the East Asia Department shared her sense of urgency to improve the process and supported her idea to develop an automated system to monitor gender mainstreaming efforts.

Veronica started the project in 2019. She tells us that despite not being a techie herself, she took up the challenge. To move ahead, "I hired terrific data scientists who immediately started by discussing with the teams concerned, getting to know their specific needs so that the system would be easy to use, applicable, implementable right from the start,” Veronica explains.

Five months later and now a system is in place to capture and visualize gender results anywhere, anytime, and to tag project-level results to corporate results indicators. It enables the user to go deep into a project but can also zoom out to see the big picture in a department, a sector, or a country. The system has an ask-me-anything function, with elements of artificial intelligence that allow users to know, for example, how many jobs for women ADB projects have created in a given year—and in a specific sector—in Mongolia. The system can serve that right up.

“I’m very proud of it, but I’m also very proud that other departments are also adopting it and that this innovation has become a useful tool across the organization. ADB is definitely a place where you can explore new ways of doing things,” says Veronica. She concludes with a powerful message: “Imagine working for a truly solutions-based organization, a place where each one of us is in charge for change.” And she concludes by teasing us with one more question: “What would you change?”

Watch Veronica Joffre’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more: Gender equality monitoring system

13 14

“If you are feeling the pain and you have a solution in mind, I would say go for it, because ADB is the right place to just do it.”

Veronica Joffre Social Development Specialist for Gender and DevelopmentEast Asia Department

ADB gender mainstreaming data at your fingertips

The challenge: ADB has one of the most sophisticated approaches to mainstreaming gender in lending operations, but the data associated with it are hidden and disconnected.

The innovation: Set up an automated system that uses ADB digital infrastructure to capture and visualize results in gender mainstreaming in a

format that allows the user to zoom in and out by project, sector, and country, while tracking corporate results indicators in real time.

The story: Veronica Joffre wants to let you know that she’s not a techie: “I’m not a coder, or a millennial—but I am a user—just like you!" Her message is that as technology becomes more embedded

in our daily life, "we have to empower ourselves to own it, to solve our own very practical problems." Her message is a strong call for action to bring forward the innovator in each one of us.Veronica considers ADB’s work in gender mainstreaming to be ahead of the curve, with one of the most sophisticated categorization approaches and corporate targets for mainstreaming gender in lending operations. She joined ADB 2 years ago and was surprised when she realized that the results of these efforts were being captured manually, using Excel files, disconnected from each other.

“This can’t capture the richness, the essence of what we are doing, how we are changing lives through lending. This is critical, as much of the progress toward gender equality in recent years has been driven by data. We need to get the numbers, the evidence on what works, the progress so far, and what remains to be done,” Veronica says.

Veronica was delighted that management at the East Asia Department shared her sense of urgency to improve the process and supported her idea to develop an automated system to monitor gender mainstreaming efforts.

Veronica started the project in 2019. She tells us that despite not being a techie herself, she took up the challenge. To move ahead, "I hired terrific data scientists who immediately started by discussing with the teams concerned, getting to know their specific needs so that the system would be easy to use, applicable, implementable right from the start,” Veronica explains.

Five months later and now a system is in place to capture and visualize gender results anywhere, anytime, and to tag project-level results to corporate results indicators. It enables the user to go deep into a project but can also zoom out to see the big picture in a department, a sector, or a country. The system has an ask-me-anything function, with elements of artificial intelligence that allow users to know, for example, how many jobs for women ADB projects have created in a given year—and in a specific sector—in Mongolia. The system can serve that right up.

“I’m very proud of it, but I’m also very proud that other departments are also adopting it and that this innovation has become a useful tool across the organization. ADB is definitely a place where you can explore new ways of doing things,” says Veronica. She concludes with a powerful message: “Imagine working for a truly solutions-based organization, a place where each one of us is in charge for change.” And she concludes by teasing us with one more question: “What would you change?”

Watch Veronica Joffre’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more: Gender equality monitoring system

15 16

“I believe we are here at ADB because we want to make a difference in people’s lives. I encourage you, whatever sector you are in, to come work with me as we develop human capital.”

Rouselle LavadoSenior Health Specialist Central and West Asia Department

For Armenia, the best is yet to comeThe challenge: Develop a human capital development project for Armenia to ensure that it can thrive despite its aging and shrinking population.

The innovation: Take a multifaceted approach, combining the contributions of multiple sectors.

The story: Rouselle Lavado loves a challenge, but the one she got in early 2019 left her a bit stumped. She was tasked with creating a human capital development project in Armenia and the government wanted it by the end of the year.

This wasn’t the challenging part; it was how to make the month-long business trip

to Yerevan fit with the needs of her very young daughter. It was her husband’s bright idea for Rouselle to take her daughter with her to Armenia, her mom to take care of her daughter, and her sister to take care of her mom.

The family caravan turned out to be not only a solution to a practical problem but also the spark of an idea for how to successfully structure the project.

Good human capital development ensures that every child born today is able to reach their full potential by the time they grow up. For Armenia, this is crucial: the country only has 2.97 million people, the population is aging fast, and population growth is negative. “Every child born in Armenia has to reach their full potential to fully maximize their life and contribute to society,” explains Rouselle.

As she watched her daughter at play, Rouselle realized that she had been conducting a mini human capital development project of her own. From the moment she was pregnant, she ensured she got the best medical care she could find, with seamless coordination between the antenatal clinic and the hospital where she delivered. The search for the best preschool for her daughter took up its own Excel spreadsheet, weighing up the pros and cons to ensure her daughter had the best educational start.

“After all, I knew that preschool education has one of the highest returns of investment in child development,” she says. “And throughout her young life, of course, we have had to make sure she survives. She always has her seat belt on and the car seat is well placed. We keep her away from pollutants and tobacco smoke so she doesn’t get sick from respiratory illnesses.”

These observations led to a number of key components in the human capital development project for Armenia, such as an amendment in the law to introduce ways to make the quality of health care better. The project also made headway in introducing a law to increase access to preschool in rural areas, and to increase the role of the government as a steward of public health with better seat belt and tobacco control laws.

For Rouselle, the project entailed working with a lot of colleagues in ADB. It turned out to be challenging during the project preparation stage because people are used to staying in their own siloes, both in ADB and on the government counterpart side. But with patience and persistence, Rouselle got everyone on board eventually. She even got them on board in time to hit the deadline set by the Armenia government when they set her the challenge at the start of the year.

“Just as it takes a village to raise my daughter, so it also takes a whole lot of ADB to build a human capital project. A combination of everything has much bigger impact. I believe we are here at ADB because we want to make a difference in people’s lives. I encourage you, whatever sector you are in, to come work with me as we develop human capital. Let us make a change in the future of the next generation.”

Watch Rouselle Lavado’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more:Armenia: Human Development Enhancement Program

15 16

“I believe we are here at ADB because we want to make a difference in people’s lives. I encourage you, whatever sector you are in, to come work with me as we develop human capital.”

Rouselle LavadoSenior Health Specialist Central and West Asia Department

For Armenia, the best is yet to comeThe challenge: Develop a human capital development project for Armenia to ensure that it can thrive despite its aging and shrinking population.

The innovation: Take a multifaceted approach, combining the contributions of multiple sectors.

The story: Rouselle Lavado loves a challenge, but the one she got in early 2019 left her a bit stumped. She was tasked with creating a human capital development project in Armenia and the government wanted it by the end of the year.

This wasn’t the challenging part; it was how to make the month-long business trip

to Yerevan fit with the needs of her very young daughter. It was her husband’s bright idea for Rouselle to take her daughter with her to Armenia, her mom to take care of her daughter, and her sister to take care of her mom.

The family caravan turned out to be not only a solution to a practical problem but also the spark of an idea for how to successfully structure the project.

Good human capital development ensures that every child born today is able to reach their full potential by the time they grow up. For Armenia, this is crucial: the country only has 2.97 million people, the population is aging fast, and population growth is negative. “Every child born in Armenia has to reach their full potential to fully maximize their life and contribute to society,” explains Rouselle.

As she watched her daughter at play, Rouselle realized that she had been conducting a mini human capital development project of her own. From the moment she was pregnant, she ensured she got the best medical care she could find, with seamless coordination between the antenatal clinic and the hospital where she delivered. The search for the best preschool for her daughter took up its own Excel spreadsheet, weighing up the pros and cons to ensure her daughter had the best educational start.

“After all, I knew that preschool education has one of the highest returns of investment in child development,” she says. “And throughout her young life, of course, we have had to make sure she survives. She always has her seat belt on and the car seat is well placed. We keep her away from pollutants and tobacco smoke so she doesn’t get sick from respiratory illnesses.”

These observations led to a number of key components in the human capital development project for Armenia, such as an amendment in the law to introduce ways to make the quality of health care better. The project also made headway in introducing a law to increase access to preschool in rural areas, and to increase the role of the government as a steward of public health with better seat belt and tobacco control laws.

For Rouselle, the project entailed working with a lot of colleagues in ADB. It turned out to be challenging during the project preparation stage because people are used to staying in their own siloes, both in ADB and on the government counterpart side. But with patience and persistence, Rouselle got everyone on board eventually. She even got them on board in time to hit the deadline set by the Armenia government when they set her the challenge at the start of the year.

“Just as it takes a village to raise my daughter, so it also takes a whole lot of ADB to build a human capital project. A combination of everything has much bigger impact. I believe we are here at ADB because we want to make a difference in people’s lives. I encourage you, whatever sector you are in, to come work with me as we develop human capital. Let us make a change in the future of the next generation.”

Watch Rouselle Lavado’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more:Armenia: Human Development Enhancement Program

17 18

“I might not be the most popular man in Uzbekistan anymore: the developers don’t like me and neither do the banks or the construction companies. But over the medium to long term, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s really going to make a positive impact in the country.”

Peter Marro AdvisorCentral and West Asia Department

Transforming Uzbekistan’s housing finance marketThe challenge: Uzbekistan’s housing finance policy was unfocused, dysfunctional, and unsustainable. It was going to cost the government up to $4 billion over the next 3 years to maintain its housing policies and get the same, suboptimal results for those who needed help the most: poorer families in rural areas.

The innovation: Launch a sector development program combining a $50 million policy loan and a $150 million project loan to reform the housing finance market and set up a financial intermediary to enable private sector

banks to enter the mortgage market more broadly.

The story: In 2017, when Peter Marro landed in Tashkent, Uzbekistan for the first time, the country had already used a $1 billion ADB loan to build more than 30,000 homes in rural Uzbekistan. When he and his colleagues traveled to the rural areas, they saw rows of modest, functional, and identical houses, and met satisfied families living in them.

However, he made a troubling discovery: the way many of the recipients were chosen didn’t seem to be based on a fair

and transparent system. It became clear that the homes weren’t being provided to those who needed them most: families with low incomes.

“We saw a disconnect between how beneficiaries were selected and how the programs were actually managed,” says Peter. “Then we went to visit some banks and saw not one brochure on mortgage products. They didn’t offer them. It turned out that mortgage loans accounted for only 3% of the balance sheet of banks in Uzbekistan while they account typically for over 50% of a bank’s balance sheet in Western countries.”

This led to some uncomfortable discussions with the local and then national governments about how many such housing projects they had (21), and how much it was costing the government to subsidize developers, material suppliers, and banks (over $4 billion over 2020–2022). When he got on the plane back to Manila, Peter realized that what was needed wasn’t another $1 billion loan: it was a complete overhaul of the country’s housing finance system.

“We calculated the cost of these housing programs which showed that up to 80% of the price of an individual house built under the government programs was being shouldered by the government,” Peter recalls. “So, we told them this is a waste of money. You need to bring in the private sector, mobilize money from commercial banks, and streamline your own programs.”

Over the next 2 years, with countless meetings with the government and other stakeholders, including the country’s central bank, the team developed a sector development program with both a

policy loan and a project loan. Unusually for ADB, a financial intermediary loan was used to start up a new financial institution to provide banks with long-term loans, enabling them to offer mortgage finance to homeowners.

“The Central Bank was hard to convince, as were all the different ministries involved. We needed to be persistent, convincing. And we needed data. So, we showed them how it’s being done in neighboring countries such as the Russian Federation, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and convinced them they were losing out compared with the neighboring countries. It took five trips to the Central Bank for them to say yes, but then things started to happen very fast,” says Peter.

The new financial institution has been set up, the government has been making all the various policy changes needed, and the project is coming to life.

Peter still looks forward to his visits to Uzbekistan, but he has to shrug off one thing: “The end result for me is that I might not be the most popular man in Uzbekistan anymore as the developers don’t like me, and the banks and construction companies don’t like me. But over the medium to long term, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s really going to make a meaningful impact in Uzbekistan.”

Watch Peter Marro’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more:Uzbekistan: Mortgage Market Sector Development Program

17 18

“I might not be the most popular man in Uzbekistan anymore: the developers don’t like me and neither do the banks or the construction companies. But over the medium to long term, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s really going to make a positive impact in the country.”

Peter Marro AdvisorCentral and West Asia Department

Transforming Uzbekistan’s housing finance marketThe challenge: Uzbekistan’s housing finance policy was unfocused, dysfunctional, and unsustainable. It was going to cost the government up to $4 billion over the next 3 years to maintain its housing policies and get the same, suboptimal results for those who needed help the most: poorer families in rural areas.

The innovation: Launch a sector development program combining a $50 million policy loan and a $150 million project loan to reform the housing finance market and set up a financial intermediary to enable private sector

banks to enter the mortgage market more broadly.

The story: In 2017, when Peter Marro landed in Tashkent, Uzbekistan for the first time, the country had already used a $1 billion ADB loan to build more than 30,000 homes in rural Uzbekistan. When he and his colleagues traveled to the rural areas, they saw rows of modest, functional, and identical houses, and met satisfied families living in them.

However, he made a troubling discovery: the way many of the recipients were chosen didn’t seem to be based on a fair

and transparent system. It became clear that the homes weren’t being provided to those who needed them most: families with low incomes.

“We saw a disconnect between how beneficiaries were selected and how the programs were actually managed,” says Peter. “Then we went to visit some banks and saw not one brochure on mortgage products. They didn’t offer them. It turned out that mortgage loans accounted for only 3% of the balance sheet of banks in Uzbekistan while they account typically for over 50% of a bank’s balance sheet in Western countries.”

This led to some uncomfortable discussions with the local and then national governments about how many such housing projects they had (21), and how much it was costing the government to subsidize developers, material suppliers, and banks (over $4 billion over 2020–2022). When he got on the plane back to Manila, Peter realized that what was needed wasn’t another $1 billion loan: it was a complete overhaul of the country’s housing finance system.

“We calculated the cost of these housing programs which showed that up to 80% of the price of an individual house built under the government programs was being shouldered by the government,” Peter recalls. “So, we told them this is a waste of money. You need to bring in the private sector, mobilize money from commercial banks, and streamline your own programs.”

Over the next 2 years, with countless meetings with the government and other stakeholders, including the country’s central bank, the team developed a sector development program with both a

policy loan and a project loan. Unusually for ADB, a financial intermediary loan was used to start up a new financial institution to provide banks with long-term loans, enabling them to offer mortgage finance to homeowners.

“The Central Bank was hard to convince, as were all the different ministries involved. We needed to be persistent, convincing. And we needed data. So, we showed them how it’s being done in neighboring countries such as the Russian Federation, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and convinced them they were losing out compared with the neighboring countries. It took five trips to the Central Bank for them to say yes, but then things started to happen very fast,” says Peter.

The new financial institution has been set up, the government has been making all the various policy changes needed, and the project is coming to life.

Peter still looks forward to his visits to Uzbekistan, but he has to shrug off one thing: “The end result for me is that I might not be the most popular man in Uzbekistan anymore as the developers don’t like me, and the banks and construction companies don’t like me. But over the medium to long term, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s really going to make a meaningful impact in Uzbekistan.”

Watch Peter Marro’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more:Uzbekistan: Mortgage Market Sector Development Program

19 20

“Health is everybody’s business. My aim is to ensure that we are continuously pushing ourselves and striving to deliver projects that best meet the health needs of the populations today and in the future.”

Inez Mikkelsen-LopezHealth SpecialistPacific Department

How digital health can shrink the globeThe challenge: Provide access to quality health services in Papua New Guinea, with its large, spread-out rural population.

The innovation: Introduce digital health technology to overcome the rural access barrier and work with communities to ensure technologies meet their needs.

The story: As Inez Mikkelsen-Lopez traveled to a remote project site in Papua New Guinea in 2019, she was quietly grateful that she was making the trip in a helicopter and not for 4 hours on a bumpy road, followed by 2 hours by canoe through crocodile-infested waters.

She thought about what to expect when she got there, to join a ground-breaking ceremony for a new rural outpost clinic. She imagined a small gathering with the local community, perhaps a site visit to the plot of land earmarked for the clinic. Instead, the helicopter was greeted by over 500 people waiting for Inez and her team.

“People had come from all the surrounding villages. They were here to celebrate, and they were excited. Clearly, I had seriously misjudged the importance of this day,” says the health specialist.

Inez had three important realizations that day. First, the villagers were ready. The land had already been cleared and flattened, and they expected ADB to be ready, too. Second, the project was, for this community, a matter of life and death. For a villager with a critical injury or a mother in labor, this was their only option for health care that wasn’t a 2-day

journey away. Third, ADB clearly needed to manage expectations: they were building a fit-for-purpose rural health center, not a state-of-the-art hospital, and it was going to be staffed by a nurse and health extension officers.

As exciting as it was to see the beginning of a new health center for a community that needed it, Inez also knew it wasn’t ever going to be enough. And her vision for this community, and many others like it in Papua New Guinea, was far more expansive than a brick-and-mortar clinic.

“We know health infrastructure alone is not sufficient to improve health outcomes in Papua New Guinea. We need to think about how people experience the health sector there and better understand their needs so we can deliver services fit for purpose. We need to reimagine it and think how we can use digital technology to bridge that gap in these rural remote settings,” she explains.

In places where there is only a patchy phone network and the only reliable form of telecommunication is by radio, fixing that bottleneck might just be one of the most important health interventions of all because it opens the door to telemedicine.

“Imagine a future where nurses in these rural health centers can communicate with their peers in hospitals through telemedicine to better deliver services,” says Inez. “Or imagine using drones to bring in medicines or bring back samples to the laboratory for testing. Imagine using personalized diagnostic kits, so that people can diagnose themselves in the privacy of their own homes and

then use mobile phone technology to communicate with health-care workers on a treatment plan.”

These ideas are not farfetched. Such innovations are already in use in other countries, and health technology is already being used in innovative ways in Papua New Guinea. Since 2012, ADB has invested in a digital public health information pilot, which is now being rolled out across Papua New Guinea. The system tracks service delivery in rural settings, providing real-time information about what services are being provided. It also tracks disease outbreaks.

Technology needs to be sustainable and acceptable. Most of all, it needs to improve the patients’ health-care experiences. The key to getting that right? Start with the communities, says Inez. “We talked with the communities, we brought them examples of some of the innovations that we were considering, so they could see them, feel them, know how they worked.

“Health is everybody’s business. My aim at ADB is to ensure that we are continuously pushing ourselves and striving to deliver projects that best meet the needs of the populations today and in the future,” she says.

Watch Inez Mikkelsen-Lopez’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more: Papua New Guinea: Rural Primary Health Services Delivery Project

19 20

“Health is everybody’s business. My aim is to ensure that we are continuously pushing ourselves and striving to deliver projects that best meet the health needs of the populations today and in the future.”

Inez Mikkelsen-LopezHealth SpecialistPacific Department

How digital health can shrink the globeThe challenge: Provide access to quality health services in Papua New Guinea, with its large, spread-out rural population.

The innovation: Introduce digital health technology to overcome the rural access barrier and work with communities to ensure technologies meet their needs.

The story: As Inez Mikkelsen-Lopez traveled to a remote project site in Papua New Guinea in 2019, she was quietly grateful that she was making the trip in a helicopter and not for 4 hours on a bumpy road, followed by 2 hours by canoe through crocodile-infested waters.

She thought about what to expect when she got there, to join a ground-breaking ceremony for a new rural outpost clinic. She imagined a small gathering with the local community, perhaps a site visit to the plot of land earmarked for the clinic. Instead, the helicopter was greeted by over 500 people waiting for Inez and her team.

“People had come from all the surrounding villages. They were here to celebrate, and they were excited. Clearly, I had seriously misjudged the importance of this day,” says the health specialist.

Inez had three important realizations that day. First, the villagers were ready. The land had already been cleared and flattened, and they expected ADB to be ready, too. Second, the project was, for this community, a matter of life and death. For a villager with a critical injury or a mother in labor, this was their only option for health care that wasn’t a 2-day

journey away. Third, ADB clearly needed to manage expectations: they were building a fit-for-purpose rural health center, not a state-of-the-art hospital, and it was going to be staffed by a nurse and health extension officers.

As exciting as it was to see the beginning of a new health center for a community that needed it, Inez also knew it wasn’t ever going to be enough. And her vision for this community, and many others like it in Papua New Guinea, was far more expansive than a brick-and-mortar clinic.

“We know health infrastructure alone is not sufficient to improve health outcomes in Papua New Guinea. We need to think about how people experience the health sector there and better understand their needs so we can deliver services fit for purpose. We need to reimagine it and think how we can use digital technology to bridge that gap in these rural remote settings,” she explains.

In places where there is only a patchy phone network and the only reliable form of telecommunication is by radio, fixing that bottleneck might just be one of the most important health interventions of all because it opens the door to telemedicine.

“Imagine a future where nurses in these rural health centers can communicate with their peers in hospitals through telemedicine to better deliver services,” says Inez. “Or imagine using drones to bring in medicines or bring back samples to the laboratory for testing. Imagine using personalized diagnostic kits, so that people can diagnose themselves in the privacy of their own homes and

then use mobile phone technology to communicate with health-care workers on a treatment plan.”

These ideas are not farfetched. Such innovations are already in use in other countries, and health technology is already being used in innovative ways in Papua New Guinea. Since 2012, ADB has invested in a digital public health information pilot, which is now being rolled out across Papua New Guinea. The system tracks service delivery in rural settings, providing real-time information about what services are being provided. It also tracks disease outbreaks.

Technology needs to be sustainable and acceptable. Most of all, it needs to improve the patients’ health-care experiences. The key to getting that right? Start with the communities, says Inez. “We talked with the communities, we brought them examples of some of the innovations that we were considering, so they could see them, feel them, know how they worked.

“Health is everybody’s business. My aim at ADB is to ensure that we are continuously pushing ourselves and striving to deliver projects that best meet the needs of the populations today and in the future,” she says.

Watch Inez Mikkelsen-Lopez’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more: Papua New Guinea: Rural Primary Health Services Delivery Project

21 22

“All innovative climate change technologies need money and access to markets and people. We’re a development bank, we have all of those. We’ve just got to find ways to deploy them well.”

Steve PetersSenior Energy Specialist for Waste-to-Energy Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Getting big ideas through the door at ADBThe challenge: The climate crisis demands big ideas and bold solutions, but finding suitable ADB projects to engage with can be by hit-and-miss for innovators in climate change technology.

The innovation: Build a database of pre-vetted big-idea climate solutions that ADB project officers can access easily.

The story: More ferocious bushfires, longer droughts, changed weather patterns, more people displaced by rising sea levels: the signs of climate change are there for us to see. And for Steve Peters, the oceans are also the place to look for evidence of a climate crisis that needs our full attention.

“If you look at ocean acidification, why is it important? Because for every carbon atom in the atmosphere, there are nine accessible in the sea or thereabouts,” he says. “So, the sea is a concentration of the problems that we have.”

A carbon-induced drop in the pH level of the ocean kills off phytoplankton and zooplankton, which play a key role in providing oxygen and sequestering carbon. “And most importantly, they’re the base of the marine food web or the food chain. So, when they go, that’s a lot of people who are not going to be able to eat fish protein,” says Steve. “It’s about 1.4 billion people around the world, a catastrophic outcome. Now, whether or not this actually happens in this way, we simply don’t know. We know some species will do better, some will not under

marine increased acidity, but for certain it’s going to change. And with change comes significant suffering and loss.”

With a loan portfolio of $37 billion in 2018, ADB has a great opportunity to have an impact on the climate change discussion, and it should, says Steve, not least because many of the people who will be most impacted live in ADB’s member countries.

For innovators who have good ideas for getting that carbon out of the sea, getting in front of the right people at ADB can be a challenge. Equally, for ADB project managers, identifying suitable partners for bringing in the innovative solutions to big climate change problems can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

To solve this mismatch, Steve and his colleagues set up a project that they called the Big Blue Front Door, a reference to both ADB’s logo color and the size of the bank relative to those trying to cross its threshold with an innovative idea.

The team sifted through 150 companies to find the ones that not only had a promising innovation but were also commercially viable and well-managed enough to fit ADB’s necessarily stringent procurement requirements.

“We picked 20, sent them to conferences, helped them to get more information, learned about them to see if we could pilot with them,” says Steve.

Now they have a solutions drawer, and they can introduce the solutions to

potential partners in ADB. For example, a solar thermal storage technology provider from Taipei,China has been referred to a project in Pakistan that the company was unaware of, and also to a desalination project that had not even considered using such technology before then.

“The innovation was not in the technology or even in the business case,” says Steve. “It was in giving them the awareness and information that empowered them to do work with us. All innovative climate change technologies need money and access to markets and people. We’re a development bank, we have all of those. We’ve just got to find ways to deploy them well.”

Watch Steve Peters’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Full talk

Access the ADB Technology Register form here.

21 22

“All innovative climate change technologies need money and access to markets and people. We’re a development bank, we have all of those. We’ve just got to find ways to deploy them well.”

Steve PetersSenior Energy Specialist for Waste-to-Energy Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Getting big ideas through the door at ADBThe challenge: The climate crisis demands big ideas and bold solutions, but finding suitable ADB projects to engage with can be by hit-and-miss for innovators in climate change technology.

The innovation: Build a database of pre-vetted big-idea climate solutions that ADB project officers can access easily.

The story: More ferocious bushfires, longer droughts, changed weather patterns, more people displaced by rising sea levels: the signs of climate change are there for us to see. And for Steve Peters, the oceans are also the place to look for evidence of a climate crisis that needs our full attention.

“If you look at ocean acidification, why is it important? Because for every carbon atom in the atmosphere, there are nine accessible in the sea or thereabouts,” he says. “So, the sea is a concentration of the problems that we have.”

A carbon-induced drop in the pH level of the ocean kills off phytoplankton and zooplankton, which play a key role in providing oxygen and sequestering carbon. “And most importantly, they’re the base of the marine food web or the food chain. So, when they go, that’s a lot of people who are not going to be able to eat fish protein,” says Steve. “It’s about 1.4 billion people around the world, a catastrophic outcome. Now, whether or not this actually happens in this way, we simply don’t know. We know some species will do better, some will not under

marine increased acidity, but for certain it’s going to change. And with change comes significant suffering and loss.”

With a loan portfolio of $37 billion in 2018, ADB has a great opportunity to have an impact on the climate change discussion, and it should, says Steve, not least because many of the people who will be most impacted live in ADB’s member countries.

For innovators who have good ideas for getting that carbon out of the sea, getting in front of the right people at ADB can be a challenge. Equally, for ADB project managers, identifying suitable partners for bringing in the innovative solutions to big climate change problems can be like finding a needle in a haystack.

To solve this mismatch, Steve and his colleagues set up a project that they called the Big Blue Front Door, a reference to both ADB’s logo color and the size of the bank relative to those trying to cross its threshold with an innovative idea.

The team sifted through 150 companies to find the ones that not only had a promising innovation but were also commercially viable and well-managed enough to fit ADB’s necessarily stringent procurement requirements.

“We picked 20, sent them to conferences, helped them to get more information, learned about them to see if we could pilot with them,” says Steve.

Now they have a solutions drawer, and they can introduce the solutions to

potential partners in ADB. For example, a solar thermal storage technology provider from Taipei,China has been referred to a project in Pakistan that the company was unaware of, and also to a desalination project that had not even considered using such technology before then.

“The innovation was not in the technology or even in the business case,” says Steve. “It was in giving them the awareness and information that empowered them to do work with us. All innovative climate change technologies need money and access to markets and people. We’re a development bank, we have all of those. We’ve just got to find ways to deploy them well.”

Watch Steve Peters’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Full talk

Access the ADB Technology Register form here.

23 24

“My message to you is innovation doesn’t need to cost more. It’s a process of overcoming biases, taking time to bring your client onside to show them that they can do things differently.”

Neeta Pokhrel HeadProject Administration UnitSouth Asia Department

You can help your client be the first to make a bold changeThe challenge: Arsenic and fluoride poisoning from drinking water is a pervasive public health problem in rural and parts of urban India, and traditional interventions aren’t working to overcome it fully.

The innovation: Find the right physical and institutional solution for sustainable, women-led, and smart water services management.

The story: In 2016, while on mission to West Bengal, India, Neeta Pokhrel saw something very disturbing: a young village boy and his mother, a fish farmer, had scales on their hands, that could only mean one thing—chronic arsenic poisoning.

Neeta also met an 18-year-old girl in grade 11 at school, whose studies were hampered by the terrible pains she suffered in her feet, also because of arsenic in her drinking water. The next day, in another district, Neeta met a little boy carrying heavy water containers on

his bike to take home to his family. Some days he went to school. Some days he spent doing this.

About 27 million people in India are either suffering from or are at risk of arsenic and fluoride poisoning from the groundwater. The government of West Bengal was acutely aware of the need to solve these problems. The officials proposed a $240 million loan from ADB to do what they’ve always done: build a public stand post–based water scheme to shift users away from polluted groundwater.

Neeta was dismayed. “Is that all we aspire to?” she asked herself. “I reminded them that if the polluted groundwater supply is even slightly closer to their front door, that’s what they may still use, because a public tap won’t help cut the drudgery of water collection if it’s further away.”

The government was keen to do something but was also wary of setting a precedent by offering too much: if the households covered by this loan project got water piped

into their house, everyone else would want it, too, and that would get very complicated and difficult to maintain. The story of water supply to rural areas is littered with the failures of wells and pipeline projects that floundered because they couldn’t be maintained. Best to keep it simple and basic for rural areas, they said.

“This is the bias that we have: development partners, governments, even the communities themselves say it has to be simple and basic. Yet, when I visited these villages, I could see everyone had a smartphone. Why couldn’t you just give them a customer interface where they could click a button to let you know if they’re not getting water? Why not add SIM-based sensors along these long, unmanned pipelines to monitor water flow? Why not let the women in the villages manage the local supply?”

When Neeta proposed the last idea in a village meeting of 80-odd people, a senior government official next to her whispered: “You won’t find any women accountants here.”

“Something came over me and I said: ‘How many of you are in a self-help group?’ Fifty hands shot up. ‘And how many of you are doing the group’s accounts?’ Thirty hands went up, mostly women.”

And so began a long journey—Neeta recalls going back to meet with the government officials and communities every month for a year—of showing that ADB was genuinely keen to hear what people have to say. It was a process of shedding biases on both sides, deconstructing myths, bringing analysis and cost comparisons to show it doesn’t

cost more and it’s more sustainable if you do it differently.

“They were even more excited than me in the end because this would be the first large-scale water project in India that was a 24-7, household-based, smart water project, run by women in their own communities,” says Neeta.

Two weeks before, Neeta had gone back to the project site. The women were busy, as usual. But they took a break from their chores to pull out their phones and show her the water supply management mobile app. They’d also already started doing household surveys to create the asset registry and had identified who would be the plumbers, the cloud-based managers, and the accountants among them.

“My message to you is, innovation doesn’t need to cost more,” says Neeta. “It’s a process of overcoming biases, taking time to bring your client onside to show them that they can do things differently.”

Watch Neeta Pokhrel’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more: India: West Bengal Drinking Water Sector Improvement Project

Read Neeta’s blog post: For rural water systems, small and simple is a “pipe dream”

ADB Bringing Safe, Sustainable Drinking Water Service to 1.65 Million in India’s West Bengal State

23 24

“My message to you is innovation doesn’t need to cost more. It’s a process of overcoming biases, taking time to bring your client onside to show them that they can do things differently.”

Neeta Pokhrel HeadProject Administration UnitSouth Asia Department

You can help your client be the first to make a bold changeThe challenge: Arsenic and fluoride poisoning from drinking water is a pervasive public health problem in rural and parts of urban India, and traditional interventions aren’t working to overcome it fully.

The innovation: Find the right physical and institutional solution for sustainable, women-led, and smart water services management.

The story: In 2016, while on mission to West Bengal, India, Neeta Pokhrel saw something very disturbing: a young village boy and his mother, a fish farmer, had scales on their hands, that could only mean one thing—chronic arsenic poisoning.

Neeta also met an 18-year-old girl in grade 11 at school, whose studies were hampered by the terrible pains she suffered in her feet, also because of arsenic in her drinking water. The next day, in another district, Neeta met a little boy carrying heavy water containers on

his bike to take home to his family. Some days he went to school. Some days he spent doing this.

About 27 million people in India are either suffering from or are at risk of arsenic and fluoride poisoning from the groundwater. The government of West Bengal was acutely aware of the need to solve these problems. The officials proposed a $240 million loan from ADB to do what they’ve always done: build a public stand post–based water scheme to shift users away from polluted groundwater.

Neeta was dismayed. “Is that all we aspire to?” she asked herself. “I reminded them that if the polluted groundwater supply is even slightly closer to their front door, that’s what they may still use, because a public tap won’t help cut the drudgery of water collection if it’s further away.”

The government was keen to do something but was also wary of setting a precedent by offering too much: if the households covered by this loan project got water piped

into their house, everyone else would want it, too, and that would get very complicated and difficult to maintain. The story of water supply to rural areas is littered with the failures of wells and pipeline projects that floundered because they couldn’t be maintained. Best to keep it simple and basic for rural areas, they said.

“This is the bias that we have: development partners, governments, even the communities themselves say it has to be simple and basic. Yet, when I visited these villages, I could see everyone had a smartphone. Why couldn’t you just give them a customer interface where they could click a button to let you know if they’re not getting water? Why not add SIM-based sensors along these long, unmanned pipelines to monitor water flow? Why not let the women in the villages manage the local supply?”

When Neeta proposed the last idea in a village meeting of 80-odd people, a senior government official next to her whispered: “You won’t find any women accountants here.”

“Something came over me and I said: ‘How many of you are in a self-help group?’ Fifty hands shot up. ‘And how many of you are doing the group’s accounts?’ Thirty hands went up, mostly women.”

And so began a long journey—Neeta recalls going back to meet with the government officials and communities every month for a year—of showing that ADB was genuinely keen to hear what people have to say. It was a process of shedding biases on both sides, deconstructing myths, bringing analysis and cost comparisons to show it doesn’t

cost more and it’s more sustainable if you do it differently.

“They were even more excited than me in the end because this would be the first large-scale water project in India that was a 24-7, household-based, smart water project, run by women in their own communities,” says Neeta.

Two weeks before, Neeta had gone back to the project site. The women were busy, as usual. But they took a break from their chores to pull out their phones and show her the water supply management mobile app. They’d also already started doing household surveys to create the asset registry and had identified who would be the plumbers, the cloud-based managers, and the accountants among them.

“My message to you is, innovation doesn’t need to cost more,” says Neeta. “It’s a process of overcoming biases, taking time to bring your client onside to show them that they can do things differently.”

Watch Neeta Pokhrel’s talk at the 2020 ADB Innovation Fair Trailer / Full talk

Find out more: India: West Bengal Drinking Water Sector Improvement Project

Read Neeta’s blog post: For rural water systems, small and simple is a “pipe dream”

ADB Bringing Safe, Sustainable Drinking Water Service to 1.65 Million in India’s West Bengal State

27 28

Faces of Innovation at the Innovation Fair Marketplace

26

Year: 2019-2021

Funding: Technical assistancecommitment: $13.1 million

Cofinancing commitments: $1.45 billion

Modality: Technical assistance and sovereign loans

Department: Southeast Asia Department

Sector:Multisector

Team: Alfredo Perdiguero Anouj MehtaNguyen Ba Hung

Project name: ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF)

Developing countries in Southeast Asia need to scale up green infrastructure investments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and address climate change challenges

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

Accelerating green infrastructure project development in ASEAN for ACGF financing

NEXT STEP

ACCELERATING GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Watch this video on the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund

http://bit.ly/2P3DdTF

Project examples

Facility

Sustainable transport

Clean energy

Resilient water

systems

A facility under the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund (AIF) dedicated to helping ASEAN governments create bankable green infrastructure projects

Catalytic De-risking projects

and mobilizing commercial finance

GreenSupporting

projects with clear green targets

Pooling public development

capital

How ACGF Works

ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF)

Project origination • Identifies and screens

infrastructureprojects

• Creates a projectpipeline

• Develops projectfinancing models

Project funding • Utilizes AIF funds to

de-risk projects• Mobilizes cofinancing

from developmentpartners

• Catalyzes privatesector investment

Policy and knowledge support • Trains government o�cials

in green finance• Hosts investor roundtable

events• Delivers policy advice and

creates knowledge resources

Financing sources

Agence Française de Développement

Technical assistance

Cofinancing commitment

AIF $75MADB $2.5M $300M

KfW $336MGovernment of Korea

European Investment BankEuropean Union

$5.0M $350M

$168M$52M

$168M

$4.5M

$1.1M

Find out more: ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility

Watch this video: ASEAN Infrastructure Fund: Promoting Green and Inclusive Infrastructure

“There are a lot of green bonds issued by the private sector, and there is public sector money but not enough. We need to bring these two together, but how can we catalyze this? When a project starts, the private sector doesn’t want to invest because the risk is too high, so we specialize in financing projects during the construction period so that later, when the project has a source of income, the private sector can be attracted. We also try to get low interest rates and de-risk a project at the start, therefore attracting the private sector to invest in projects with new technology.”

If developing countries in Southeast Asia are going to achieve their Sustainable Development Goal targets and meet the challenges of climate change, they need to scale up their green infrastructure investments. The problem is how to overcome the private sector’s reluctance to get involved at an early stage when these projects are considered to be too high risk?

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Catalytic Green Finance Facility is an innovative facility under the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund dedicated to helping governments create bankable green infrastructure projects. The facility operates in three ways: project origination, project funding, and policy knowledge and support. It pools bilateral aid funding and ADB funding in $13.1 million worth of technical assistance and $1.45 billion in cofinancing commitments.

Alfredo PerdigueroDirector, Regional Cooperation and Operations Coordination Division, Southeast Asia Department

Financial Products and Solutions

27

CHALLENGES

SOLUTION

NEXT STEP

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE THROUGH MICROFINANCE

Project name: 44934-020 Regional: Building Community Resilience through Microfinance in Lagging Peri-Urban Settlements

Year of approval:2019

Funding: Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund (UCCRTF)

Modality: Grant, guarantees

Department: Private Sector Operations Department, Private Sector Financial Institutions Division

Sector: Finance

Team: Taneja Anshukant Genevieve Abel Melissa Escurel Joy Bailey Virinder Sharma

Climate change and natural disasters disproportionately

impact the poor

Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) Unable to offer long-term loans of 3 to 4 years to improve the living conditions of the urban

poor

An innovative use of technical assistance funds addresses the problem by

MFIs’ limited capacity to help customers with the technical

inputs for home improvements

MFIs’ inability to design, develop, and scale up a long-term loan

product

Limited financing for construction of

disaster-resilient housing

Extending training, capacity

building, and execution support for MFIs

MFIs are funded by short-term loans from commercial

banks, typically 1 to 2 years

Scale up their resources for delivering such loans to their micro-borrowers

Providing an additional first-loss

guarantee on longer-term loans that commercial banks will

extend to MFIs

Onlend for home improvement, water and sanitation end-uses

Onlend for home improvement, water and sanitation end-uses, Habitat for Humanity, for design, development, and rollout

The first phase of the work will be taken up in the vulnerable peri-urban settlements in three developing member countries (DMCs), and

followed by additional coverage in other DMCs

Climate change and natural disasters disproportionately affect the poor, and when they try to rebuild and strengthen their dwellings in the aftermath, the urban poor have limited options for financing construction of disaster-resilient housing. The microfinance institutions (MFIs) that typically lend to the poor living in these settlements are unable to secure bank loans they need to offer the longer-term financing that is necessary for an investment as big as strengthening or reinforcing a house. Moreover, these MFIs also lack the capacity to help their customers with the technical input they need to build better and stronger homes.

Use ADB technical assistance (TA) funding to provide a first-loss guarantee on longer-term loans that commercial banks will extend to selected MFIs. They can then onlend to their customers for financing home improvements, and water and sanitation projects. A part of the TA is also used to extend the training, capacity-building, and execution capabilities of the MFIs, so that they can scale up their resources and be better placed to offer home construction loans and build resilience in the community.

Find out more: Regional: Building Community Resilience through Microfinance in Lagging Peri-Urban Settlements

“ADB aims to break this vicious cycle of difficulties for MFIs and their borrowers, a vast majority of whom are women. It’s not just a matter of providing financing. The people in these vulnerable settlements need to design, budget, source materials, and step-by-step plan their home-improvement construction work. We’re working with MFIs and with a technical partner, to help reach out to these micro-borrowers and help deliver a more climate-change-impact-resilient housing solution. To bring continuity and re-deploy the funds, we are also creating a catalytic fund. This is one of the innovations in the project, as we try to expand the coverage and scale incrementally.”

Taneja AnshukantPrincipal Investment Specialist,Private Sector Operations Department

Phase 1 of the project covers the Philippines, Myanmar, and Bangladesh, then phase 2 will cover Nepal and Pakistan.

Financial Products and Solutions

28

Year: 2019

Funding: $250 million

Project name: Kazakhstan: Irrigation Rehabilitation Project 50387-001

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTIONS

Promote the development of asset management plan in

irrigation projects

NEXT STEPS

Local-currency loan to KVK to mitigate foreign currency risk as

KVK’s revenue is in local currency

LOCAL-CURRENCY LENDING FOR IRRIGATION REHABILITATION

Irrigation systems variously diminished

in capacity or became nonfunctional

Poor operation and maintenance

(O&M) capacity of irrigation operator Weak sta� capacity and

limited equipment for O&M

Obsolete agricultural practices and on-farm

water management technologies

Poor links between markets, enterprises, and

crop growers

Replicate local-currency

lending in Central Asian countries for

public sector projects

Introduce the use of geogrid and SCADA in several

irrigation rehabilitation and modernization projects

under processing

Local-currency lending Asset management planImprove its tari� planning and ensure cost recovery for O&M

and investment

Use of geogridReinforcement to replace

traditional steel reinforcement of concrete for cost reduction

SCADA systemHelp KVK control irrigation water management locally or at remote

locations by monitoring, gathering, and processing real-time data for

effective water management

Underinvestment in irrigation infrastructure

High water lossesInadequate or damaged

water metering and hydraulic structures

Outdated skills for irrigation and water infrastructure asset

management

Farmers do not have enough capacity to apply advanced

farming technologies

TENGE

Modality: Loan

Department: Central and West Asia Department

Sector: Natural resources, agriculture and rural development

Team:Yaozhou Zhou

Innovations

(iii) Develop institutional

capacity of Kazvodkhoz (KVK), a state-owned

enterprise, to improve its irrigation management and

internal governance

(ii) Support farmer organizations to

improve on-farm water management and

diversify to high-value crops

(i) Rehabilitate and improve

irrigation and drainage networks serving 171,000 hectares (ha) of land, and establish a drip irrigation system covering 9,300 ha

In Kazakhstan, irrigation systems have either diminished in capacity or become nonfunctional due to underinvestment and inadequate or damaged water metering. Weak staff capacity and low irrigation tariffs at the irrigation operator, state-owned enterprise Kazvodkhoz (KVK), have hampered operations and management of irrigation networks. Obsolete agricultural practices and on-farm water management technologies exacerbate the problem.

A $250 million ADB loan project will rehabilitate and modernize irrigation and drainage networks, while the lack of capacity will be addressed by supporting farmer organizations to improve on-farm water management and diversify to high-value crops. The loan will also support KVK to develop its institutional capacity and improve its irrigation management and internal governance.

Find out more: Kazakhstan: Irrigation Rehabilitation Project

“The results will be achieved through four innovations. Local-currency lending to KVK will mitigate foreign currency risk. An asset management plan will improve its tariff planning and ensure cost recovery for operation and management. KVK’s supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA) will be established to help management both locally and at remote locations monitor, gather, and process real-time data for more effective water management. And more cost-effective geosynthetic material grid (geogrid) to replace the traditional steel reinforcement.”

Yaozhou ZhouPrincipal Water Resources Specialist, Central and West Asia Department

Financial Products and Solutions

29

Department: Southeast Asia Department

Modality: Technical assistance

Sector:Finance

Team: Alfredo Perdiguero Anouj Mehta Nguyen Ba Hung

Project name: TA 8240: Supporting Regional Project Development for ASEAN Connectivity

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEP

PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP FOR ASEAN

Funding:$10.3 million equivalent

AICOE

Need for development of bankable infrastructure projects across ASEAN countries to attract private investment

through public–private partnership (PPP) scheme

Promote broader approach to attract private financing sources with green and innovative features with ADB’s end-to-end support for relevant sector

initiatives (renewable energy, health, education, etc.)

Year:2012-2019

Enhance bankability of PPP projects

Tap ADB credit or

financing enhancements

Encourage linkages within

ASEAN to stimulate regional interaction

Maintain active relationships

with ADB stakeholders on PPP projects

ASEAN Infrastructure Centre of Excellence

• Regional efforts for enabling PPPs• Spread the "One ADB" approach

among Southeast Asia Department,Office of Public–Private Partnership,resident missions, and PrivateSector Operations Departmentseamlessly

• Innovative initiatives forcooperation between Singapore,Canada, and ADB through a jointtechnical assistance fund

Key achievements

Visit project site

Projects/Transactions

Capacity building/Knowledge products

roundtables knowledge products4

Tender completed

Cambodia National Solar Park Program

Tender support commenced4 projects

Feasibility and pre-feasibility studies

11 projects

5

In 2010, the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) endorsed the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity to promote infrastructure development and connectivity. However, there is still an unmet need for bankable infrastructure projects across ASEAN countries to attract private investment through public–private partnership (PPP) schemes.

ADB provided the technical assistance necessary to set up the ASEAN Infrastructure Centre of Excellence (AICOE), which aims to enhance the bankability of PPP projects and tap ADB credit for financing enhancements. It also encourages linkages within ASEAN to stimulate projects and maintains active relationships with ADB stakeholders on PPP projects. The center is an innovative initiative between Singapore, Canada, and ADB through a joint regional technical assistance. It supported a tender on the Cambodia National Solar Park Program through to completion, and is in the process of supporting over a dozen other projects with feasibility study and tender.

Find out more: Regional: Supporting Regional Project Development for Association of Southeast Asian Nations Connectivity

“Our next step is to promote a broader approach to attract private financing sources with green and innovative features with ADB’s end-to-end support for relevant sector initiatives, such as renewable energy, health, and education.”

Anouj MehtaPrincipal Regional Cooperation Specialist, Southeast Asia Department

Financial Products and Solutions

30

Department: Southeast Asia Department

Modality: Loan

Sector:Finance

Team: Anouj Mehta Nguyen Ba Hung

Project name: SDG Indonesia One-Green Finance Facility (SIO-GFF)

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEP

SDG INDONESIA ONE– GREEN FINANCE FACILITY

Year:2020

SDG Indonesia One–Green Finance Facility (SIO–GFF)

4 pillars: Tailored to the appetite of donors and investors

Lack of a large-scale pipeline of bankable green infrastructure projects

Finalization of the institutional structure and financial mechanics for operationalizing SIO-GFF and preparation of ADB loans.

Underutilization of capital markets and instruments for accessing private financing sources

Without accelerated e�orts, unlikely to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

PIPELINE

Establishment of an integrated platform

Channel into infrastructure projects

to achieve SDGs

Utilize public resources to catalyze private funds

Project development

Concessional funds for

de-risking

Commercial financing

Equity fund

ADB’s assistance aims to support Indonesia in developing a financing mechanism able to link provision of concessional debt funds to projects with clear green targets, financial bankability thresholds, and road maps

for private capital funds flows. Linkages of green targets to the SDGs will be utilized for overall monitoring of achievements.

Funding: $600 million in phases

If Indonesia is to achieve its Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets, it will need to accelerate green infrastructure projects, but the pipeline of large-scale, bankable projects of this kind is lacking. As a result, capital markets, as well as instruments for accessing private financing, are underutilized.

ADB created an integrated platform: the SDG Indonesia One–Green Finance Facility. The proposed $600 million loan project, currently being finalized, will utilize public resources to catalyze private funds, and then channel them into infrastructure projects to achieve the SDGs.

Find out more: Catalyzing Green Finance: A Concept for Leveraging Blended Finance for Green Development

“ADB’s assistance aims to support Indonesia in developing a financing mechanism to link the provision of concessional funds in innovative structures to projects with clear green targets, financial bankability thresholds, and road maps for private capital fund flows.”

Anouj MehtaPrincipal Regional Cooperation Specialist, Southeast Asia Department

Financial Products and Solutions

31

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

SKILLS FOR COMPETITIVENESSIN CAMBODIA

The low skills base of Cambodia poses barriers to diversify and

modernize its industries, move up global value chains, and increase

competitiveness

The current level of public financing of technical and

vocational education and training is insufficient and not responsive

to labor market needs

NEXT STEPS

Established in the Ministry of Economy and Finance to foster engagements and cost sharing of training programs with industry

SDFSkills Development Fund

Pilot

Industry demand–driven

workforce development

financing mechanism

Focus on upskilling and reskilling current workers

Encourage joint financing with industry

E�ectively stimulate resource mobilization to build skilled workforce that are valued and needed by the market

million$5 allocated by the government

with ADB technical assistanceto establish the governance

structure, operational mechanism, and financial management

The Skills for Competitiveness Project will

support policy studies and knowledge products

including a long-term skills development road map

finance training proposals with

additional $7 million

strengthen the governance and implementation structure of the

pilot SDF

Develop the capacity of government agencies to strengthen the management of the fund

Establish a new SDF agency

Expand pilot SDF to provide

training opportunities for at least 3,500 workers

Project name: Cambodia: Skills for Competitiveness Project (50394-002)

Year: 2019

Funding:Concessional ordinary capital resources lending / Asian Development Fund - $60.00 million

Agence Française de Développement- $19.92 million

Government - $8.31 million

Modality:Loan

Department: Southeast Asia Department

Sector:Education

Team: Yumiko YamakawaSophea Mar

The project site:sdfcambodia.org

Cambodia’s workforce has a low skills base, which is holding back efforts to diversify and modernize industries. Unless Cambodia turns this situation around, it won’t be able to move up the global value chain and increase its competitiveness. However, the current level of public technical and vocational education and training financing is too low, and it’s also not responsive to the needs of the labor market.

ADB helped the Ministry of Economy and Finance pilot a skills development fund to foster engagement with industry and share some of the cost and technological and standards requirements. The project expands the pilot Skills Development Fund. The project is innovative because demand is industry-driven, which encourages joint financing and training program preparation, and focuses on upskilling and reskilling current workers to build the skilled workforce of the future.

Find out more: Cambodia: Skills for Competitiveness Project

Visit the project website: http://www.sdfcambodia.org/

“Having a highly skilled labor force is essential for a country like Cambodia, which has a fast-growing and structurally transforming economy and an expanding workforce. The ADB loan will focus on improving the skills of workers employed in high-growth sectors to fuel the country’s development. We are also making sure that all stakeholders—especially the government, the training providers, and the private sector— work together to boost workers’ skills.”

Sophea MarSenior Social Sector Officer, Cambodia Resident Mission

Financial Products and Solutions

32

The challenge: When it comes to raising millions of people out of poverty, nothing is more impactful than trade. Trade financing—the guarantees and loans that companies use to back their import and export transactions—is extremely important, but there is a $1.5 trillion global gap in this financing, of which 40% is in Asia. The worst affected are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly those led by women.

Innovation: ADB’s Trade Finance Program closes that gap. Last year, the program supported over 4,800 transactions, of which 85% were SME related, valued at $5.4 billion. The program operates in some of developing Asia’s toughest markets, but it still mobilized $3.5 billion in cofinancing from the private sector. In addition to closing gaps through transactions, the program enabled twinning between banks to boost their support for trade. Other clever innovations include creating digital standards for fintech to underpin more support for SMEs, and working with banks and bank regulators to see how to link loan and guarantee pricing to environmental and labor standards. The program also implemented a gender initiative to boost the participation of women in finance.

Next steps:• Expand the program’s gender initiative to more banks and more

countries. The initiative centers on enhancing banks’ human resource policies to attract, retain, and promote more women in finance and trade.

• Intensify efforts to streamline and improve anti–money laundering to drive more transparency into the trade and financial system to avoid it being used by criminals, including human traffickers.

• Enhance sustainability in trade by developing operational training and tools for banks to assess the environmental and social impact of transactions.

Find out more: Trade Finance Program

Follow Trade Finance Program on LinkedIn

“ADB’s Trade Finance Program executes transactions and creates knowledge products that close market gaps, contributing to the growth and jobs that improve peoples’ lives.”

Steven BeckHead, Trade and Supply Chain, Private Sector Operations Department

Financial Products and Solutions

33

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEPS

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY FOR POWER TRANSMISSION

Energy transmission system of Bangladesh is not yet modernized

The power grid becomes more congested as Bangladesh's economy grows

Project name:Dhaka and Western Zone Transmission Grid Expansion Project

Year of implementation: 2020

Funding: ADB - $300 million (loan) Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank - $20o million (loan) People's Republic of China Fund - $0.75 million (grant)

Modality: Loan, grant

Department: South Asia Department

Sector:Energy

Project officer: Aiming Zhou

Aluminum Conductor Composite Core (ACCC®)

Less swing

• Less right-of-way needed• Carries more current• Longer span between support

structures• CO2 emissions reduction• More durable and resilient

Drone to scour the grid network for damage

• Improve system reliability• Higher safety for workers• Reduce operation and maintenance cost• Provide digitalization solution

Visit project site:

Procurement of drones and associated software and hardware for the drone center; and bidding of EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) contracts for the cable-associated work

Preparation of rules and regulations about drone use

Establishment of drone operations center in the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB)

Training of PGCB sta� in cable and drone use

1 2

3 4

Bangladesh’s power system needs to be modernized, and the power grid is becoming more and more congested as the economy expands.

Use the more durable and resilient high temperature low sag (HTLS) power transmission cables, and have drones scour the grid network for damage.

Find out more: Bangladesh: Dhaka and Western Zone Transmission Grid Expansion Project

“HTLS makes it possible to have a longer span between pylons, carry more current, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, while drones improve system reliability, reduce operation and maintenance costs, and increase safety for workers.”

Aiming ZhouFormer Principal Energy Specialist, South Asia Department

Technology

34

The current practice of using inaccurate weather data as an input for load forecasting can be eliminated

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

CLIMATE RESILIENCY IN INFRASTRUCTURE OPERATION AND MAINTENANCEUSE OF WEATHER ANALYTICS

Enhanced and accurate outage predictions, better operational risk identification, and robust scenario planning

leading to optimal deployment of maintenance resources

Big dataAdvanced analytics

Artificial intelligence

Exponentially increased accuracy of weather prediction

The benefits significantly outweigh the costs thus justifying more investments in this stream.

ADB project executing agencies will be guided to begin with a pilot project focused on building climate

resiliency in operation and maintenance.

NEXT STEPS

Project name: Streamlining infrastructure operation and maintenance practices by use of advanced weather analytics

Department: South Asia Department, India Resident Mission

Sector:Energy

Team: Keerthi Kumar Challa

Change the current practice of using inaccurate weather data as an input for load forecasting in energy infrastructure operation and maintenance.

Combine big data, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence to exponentially increase the accuracy of weather prediction.

Doing so will make outage predictions more accurate and enable better operational risk identification and more robust scenario planning, in turn leading to optimum deployment of resources for system maintenance.

“As the philosopher Charles Handy said: ‘The future is not inevitable. We can influence it, if we know what we want it to be.’”

Keerthi Kumar ChallaAssociate Project Officer, India Resident Mission

A pilot project focused on building climate resiliency in operation and maintenance

Technology

35

Translate policy statements into

adaptation and mitigation actions

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

Collecting, reviewing, and processing data from Bhutan, India,

and Nepal

NEXT STEPS

DECISION-MAKING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

Preparing the system’s guidelines, manual, summary brochure,

and/or quick reference guide, and conducting seminars and training

Visit project site:

An interactive web-based tool for automating the preparation of climate change assessment reports for projects

Project name: Remote Sensing–Geographical Information System (RS-GIS)–based Climate and Disaster Risk Resilience Decision Support System

Year:Originally conceptualized in 2012 under South Asia Department's regional technical assistance (TA) Preparing for Climate Action South Asia (TA 8292-REG) and continued through regional TA Action on Climate Change in South Asia (TA 8572-REG, 2013-2018). Currently supported under the regional Transaction Technical Assistance Facility (TA 9700-REG).

Funding: ADB Technical Assistance Special Fund

Modality: Loans, grant

Department: South Asia Department

Sector:Multisector (agriculture, natural resources and rural development; energy; transport; water and other urban infrastructure and services)

Team leader: Liping Zheng

Formulateclimate change policy,

strategy, and action plan

Mainstream policy into

development plans, projects, and programs

Remote Sensing–

Climate and Disaster Risk Resilience Decision Support System

Produce an initial climate change assessment report

Initially populated with data from Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka

Sector-specific indicatorsIdentify a project’s or project

component’s exposures and/or sensitivities to changing climate

Recommend management actions to address significant risks

Hazards, exposure, vulnerabilities, risk, and impact (HEVRI) maps

Improving the current national and/or regional

databases and overall design

working with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

Climate Center

Downscaling regional climate data sets

with World Climate Research Programme’s Coordinated Regional

Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) South Asia

Improving geospatial analysis

with Sustainable Development and Climate Change

Departments' Spatial Data Analysis Explorer (SPADE)

!

Geographical Information System –based(RS–GIS)

Formulate a climate change policy, strategy, and action plan, and then mainstream that policy into development plans, projects, and programs. It can be difficult to get beyond policy statements to real action for adaptation to climate change and mitigation of its effects.

Using financing from ADB’s Technical Assistance Special Fund, the team behind this innovation developed a climate and disaster risk resilience decision support system, an interactive web-based tool to automate preparing climate change assessment reports for projects. The tool uses project- and location-specific information, and generated hazards, exposure, vulnerabilities, risk, and impact maps to produce an initial climate change assessment report. So far, the system has been populated with data from Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka.

Find out more: Regional: Sustaining Climate and Disaster Risk Resilient and Low Carbon Development in South Asia

“The Climate and Disaster Risk Resilience Decision Support System is based on a remote sensing and geographical information system and has sector-specific indicators to identify a project’s exposures and sensitivities to the changing climate. To address significant risks, the system then suggests management actions, which project officers may incorporate into project design, as appropriate.”

Liping ZhengAdvisor, South Asia Department

Technology

36

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEPS

ENGINE BLOCK HEATER TECHNOLOGY

Consumes about 25% more fuel

after a “cold start” below 0°C.

Greenhouse gas emissions generated

by idling time.

Project name:Engine Block Heater Pilot Project in Nur-Sultan City, Kazakhstan under the regional technical assistance (RETA) (9308) on Promoting Low-Carbon Development in CAREC [Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation] Cities

Year:2017-2020

Funding: Regional TA 9308 / Clean Technology Fund

Modality: Grant

Department: Central and West Asia Department, Kazakhstan Resident Mission

Sector:Transport

Team: Na Won KimKenzhekhan Abuov

Read an article from Development Asia, “How Block Heater Technology Can Reduce Carbon and Air Pollution”

Di�cult to start a vehicle on

a cold winter day.

Block heater technologyOptional cabin heater can warm the vehicle and defrost the windows.

Warms the parked car engine during cold winter.

Engine block heater

Electric fan heater

External electric plug outlet

Has been in use for over 50 years in North America and Scandinavia.

540 liters of fuel 1,200 kg of CO2

Save fuelReduce

air pollution2-3 yearsPayback

after factoring emissions of producing

electricity

A typical car, per year $15 per year

Pilot project in Nur-Sultan City, Kazakhstan The block heater electric outlets installed at seven locations.

Mechanical components supplied from Finland, Sweden, and Norway.A training session conducted for automotive mechanics.

100 engine block heaters will be installed in taxi and public cars by February 2020.

Prepare a pre-feasibility study and investment road map to introduce this technology in Nur-Sultan City.

Develop di£erent financial modalities including public–private partnership schemes, and project loan for the local government.

The block heater technology will reduce air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions substantially. Through wide deployment of block heater

technology, Nur-Sultan could achieve a reduction of over 220 million liters of fuel and over 430,000 tons of carbon emissions.

On a winter morning in Nur-Sultan City, Kazakhstan, temperatures can go as low as –25°C, making it difficult to start a vehicle. Once started, vehicles consume about 25% more fuel after a cold start below zero, and the idling time while drivers turn on the engine to get their vehicles going generates gas emissions that are both unpleasant and harmful to the environment. Block heater technology, which heats up an engine using a plug-in electrical device, has been in use in Canada and Scandinavian countries for decades, but it hadn’t been adopted in Kazakhstan.

A pilot project in Nur-Sultan City introduced this technology, installing the required block heater electric outlets at seven locations, supplying mechanical components from Finland, Sweden, and Norway, and training automotive mechanics. By February 2020, the project was due to have installed 100 engine block heaters in taxis and public cars. Using this technology can have big environmental gains. A typical car uses 540 less liters of fuel a year, and even after factoring in emissions for producing the electricity needed, this technology still reduces air pollution, producing 1,200 kilograms less carbon emissions a year. In 2 or 3 years, at a cost of $15 per year, the technology pays for itself.

Find out more: Regional: Promoting Low-Carbon Development in Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program Cities

Read more about block heater technology: How Block Heater Technology Can Reduce Carbon and Air Pollution

“We’re negotiating with the local government to see how much investments they need to cover whole parking lots, shopping centers, and office buildings. The technology has a good future because, with 350,000 cars in the country, wide deployment could reduce fuel consumption by over 220 million liters and reduce carbon emissions by over 430,000 tons for the city as a whole. When you show those figures to the government, they understand the impact.”

Na Won KimSenior Environment Specialist, Sustainable Infrastructure Division, East Asia Department

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Project name: Financial Management Information Dashboard (FMiD)

Year: 2019

Department : Procurement, Portfolio, and Financial Management Department; and Information Technology Department

Team: Sevil Maharramova Francine Ntamwishimiro Eloisa Garcia Regidor Sacdalan

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT INFORMATION DASHBOARD

Lack of robust data on the public financial management systems of developing member countries (DMCs)

Ine�ective tools for monitoring and reporting on project/portfolio FM performance

NEXT STEP

Real-time monitoring and reporting for ADB Management and sta� on FM risk and performance

Financial Management Information DashboardFMiD

FMiD supports ADB Strategy 2030

ADB-wide launch and mainstreaming

Limited and inconsistent financial management (FM) data

Absence of analytical tools

Operational priority 6: Strengthening governance

and institutional capacity of DMCs

A stronger, better, and faster ADB

By modernizing business processes and providing relevant data and analytics

s

The available financial management data are limited and inconsistent, making it difficult to perform robust reporting and analysis. Effective tools are lacking for monitoring and reporting on projects and portfolio financial management performance. These issues impact management decisions on improving ADB project processing and implementation and strengthening developing member countries’ (DMCs) systems and institutions.

The Financial Management Information Dashboard (FMiD) provides relevant and consistent real-time data on projects’ financial management performance and analytics on DMCs’ public financial management systems. This tool will be accessible to all staff and ensure that there is “one source of truth” when analyzing and reporting financial management data. It significantly contributes to business efficiency by negating the need for separate tools, reconciling data between different sources, and streamlining the preparation and dissemination of reports.

“This is in support of ADB’s Strategy 2030: by modernizing business processes and providing relevant data and analytics, it ties with strengthening the governance and institutional capacity of DMCs, and also promotes a stronger, better, and faster ADB.”

Sevil MaharramovaFinancial Management Specialist, Procurement, Portfolio, and Financial Management Department

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CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEP

FLOOD FORECASTINGIN KOLKATA

Implementation and testing of the FFEWS is ongoing including capacity building for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation for

the operation and maintenance of the system

Updates on flooding, air

quality, heat stress, humidity

Factors that exacerbate the situation:

City of Kolkata in IndiaOne of the most flood-prone cities in the world

residents exposed to flooding risks

of annual rainfall of rain occurs during monsoon season

1,800 mm4 million 80%

High population

density

Built-up areas Topography

Tidal range

FFEWSThe flood forecasting and early warning system

City managers can make the right decisions at the right time to reduce the risks faced by the residents of Kolkata

Provision of forecasts

throughout the city

Real-time information

from over 300 Internet of

Things-based sensors

K-Flood WebsiteReal-time flood, air

quality, heat stress, and humidity dashboard

K-Flood AppMobile phone alerts andmonitoring system toinform city residents

Project name: Flood Forecasting and Early Warning System for the City of Kolkata

Year:2016 ongoing

Funding: Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund

Modality: Technical assistance

Department: South Asia Department

Sector:Urban development

Team:Neeta PokhrelSourav Majumder Virinder SharmaOesha Thakoerdin

Kolkata, India is one of the most flood-prone cities in the world. It has 4 million people exposed to flooding risks, thanks to 1,800 millimeters of annual rainfall, of which 80% falls during the monsoon season. The topography and tidal range (the height difference between high tide and low tide) exacerbate the situation, as does high population density.

The flood forecasting and early warning system delivers real-time information from over 300 Internet of Things–based sensors to provide forecasts throughout the city. The system gives updates on flooding, air quality, heat stress, and humidity. The information can be accessed via the K-Flood website and through the K-Flood app, which issues mobile phone alerts and has a monitoring system to inform city residents.

“City managers can make the right decisions at the right time to reduce the risks faced by the residents of Kolkata.”

Neeta PokhrelHead, Project Administration Unit, South Asia Department

Find out more: Toward Resilient Kolkata: Introducing India’s first comprehensive city-level flood forecasting and early warning system

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39

SPADE

adb-spade.org

Paper-basedADB field information stored in analog format

Analysis

maps, socioeconomic data, and others

SharingData sets are not readily available

to others

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

No central repository of GIS data sets in ADB An estimated $10 million to $30 million is being lost within ADB due to data loss and replication of data

Ongoing discussions with the Information Technology Department to integrate the SPADE Platform into ADB’s information technology

ecosystem. The SPADE app will be piloted in an upcoming technical assistance for implementation starting Q2 2020.

NEXT STEPS

SPADE is an interactive geospatial web-based cloud platform which can be

diligence, engineering design, and monitoring.

The current database includes data sets of 21 ADB project cities. It can serve as a central repository of geospatial data sets generated from ADB projects.

• Paperless approach for capturing field data digitally andin real time; automatically produces a report

• Flexible and can be customized to the requirements ofthe project

• Data collected in digital format can be analyzed onvarious digital platforms

SPADE mobile app

Spatial Data Analysis Explorer

GEOSPATIAL WEB PLATFORM OPEN SOURCE, CLOUD HOSTED

Project name: Spatial Data Analysis Explorer (SPADE) is an interactive web-based geographic information system (GIS) platform. SPADE also has a mobile application for data collection and report generation

Year: 2017 ongoing

Funding: Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund

Modality: Technical assistance

Department: Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Sector: Urban development

Team:Virinder Sharma Bonapart Masangcay

Data are useful only when they can be safely stored, easily retrieved, and meaningfully shared. This is the case with geographic information system (GIS) data, but at ADB, too often field information is stored in paper form, and analyzing photos, maps, and socioeconomic data is difficult when they are not digitally sorted. Without a central repository of GIS data sets, sharing them is not an option for those who may need them. An estimated $10 million–$30 million worth of GIS data is commissioned annually in ADB, and they need to be stored for easy retrieval.

The Spatial Data Analysis Explorer (SPADE) is an interactive geospatial web-based cloud platform, which can be used by staff and consultants for project identification, preparation, due diligence, engineering design, and monitoring. SPADE helps dig up the data where and when they are needed. Users can then overlay the data on top of one another, allowing them to simultaneously analyze what used to be discrete pieces of information. The current database includes the data sets of 21 ADB project cities and serves as a central repository of geospatial data sets generated by ADB projects.

“The SPADE mobile app gives ADB staff and consultants a paperless approach for capturing field data digitally and in real time. It automatically generates a report and is flexible and customizable to the requirements of the project. The beauty of spatial data collected in a digital format is that it can then be analyzed and integrated on different digital platforms for decision-making.”

Virinder SharmaSenior Urban Development Specialist, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Find out more: Using Spatial Cloud Computing to Build Livable Cities

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CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEP

INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT IN AFGHANISTAN

The transaction technical assistance designed the interventions for hydropower generation and urban and industrial water supply to Kandahar City and its

surroundings, to be undertaken by the private sector and World Bank, respectively

The project was approved in September 2019 and is in the early stages of implementation

stores and controls irregular and short-duration snowmelt flow from the Hindu Kush mountains

The Dahla Dam reservoir

HoweverThe ability to provide regulated downstream flow has been seriously constrained

40% of the storage capacitydue to siltation

This has resulted in

Reduction in cropped area, with

only 47% of the command area being

regularly irrigated

Expansion constraints

for high-value cropping

Reduced urban water availability

Rotating power

supplies

An integrated solution to meet the needs of rural and urban communities downstream of Dahla Dam,

35 kilometers northeast of KandaharThe project will improve the availability and management of water resources in the Arghandab sub-basin and the Kandahar region by

Increasing the storage capacity

of the existing Dahla Dam by

raising its height

Increasing reliability of

irrigation water supplies

downstream of the dam

Improving agriculture water

productivity by providing on-farm support to farmers

to improve crop production

Strengthening institutions in water resource management

Lost

Power shortages

Complex problem

Declining groundwater for urban use

Project name: Arghandab Integrated Water Resources Development Project (0655 and 0656)

Year (of approval):2019

Funding: Project – $700 million ADB – $348 million

Modality: Grant from ADB, International Fund for Agricultural Development, parallel cofinancing grant from the World Bank, and Public–Private Partnership structure for hydropower component

Department: Central and West Asia Department

Sectors:Agriculture and natural resources, urban water, energy

Team: ADB, Government, and consultants: Total 155 persons, approximately equal numbers from each

Project preparation time: 2.5 years

Project preparation cost: $3.95 million

The Dahla Dam reservoir, 35 kilometers northwest of Kandahar in Afghanistan, controls irregular and short-duration snowmelt flow from the Hindu Kush mountains, but 40% of its storage capacity is lost because of siltation. This severely constrains the dam’s ability to regulate downstream flow, leading to a significant reduction in irrigated cropped area. Only 47% of usable land is regularly irrigated, groundwater for urban areas has declined, and power shortages are chronic.

This complex problem, in a fragile and conflict-affected setting, demanded a creative, integrated, and comprehensive solution to meet the needs of rural and urban communities. ADB designed the entire project to increase the dam’s water storage capacity by raising its height; increase the reliability of irrigation water supplies; improve agriculture water productivity with on-farm support to farmers; and strengthen the institutions that manage the region’s water resources, urban water supply for Kandahar, and hydropower development. ADB, with cofinancing from the International Fund for Agricultural Development, financed most of these components. The urban water supply component was cofinanced by the World Bank, and the hydropower component will be financed by the private sector through a public–private partnership structure. To strengthen capacity, the project will fund 120 students at the Kabul Polytechnic University (KPU) to undertake a part-time master’s degree program using an international syllabus, supported by a capacity development program for the KPU teaching staff.

“To manage implementation risks, a single entity for project implementation support was preferred, so we used a novel approach with an engineering, procurement, and construction supervision consultant contract. The project has a high level of integration between the irrigation and agriculture productivity investments.”

Hans WoldringPrincipal Water Resources Specialist, Central and West Asia Department

Find out more: Afghanistan: Arghandab Integrated Water Resources Development Project

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41

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NATURE-BASED INFRASTRUCTURE

The methods used to solve these problems are new, seeking to make use of natural processes and assets, where possible, to improve sustainability

NEXT STEPS

Project name: Project number 42285–013, Loan CAM-3311/8295 Grant CAM-0454, Integrated Urban Environmental Management in the Tonle Sap Basin

Project number 47274–003, Loan VIE-3590/3591, Grant VIE-0549/0550, TA-9417, Secondary Green Cities Development Project (SGCDP)

Year (of approval): 2017 (both)

Funding:ADB ordinary capital resources, ADB Strategic Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility (GEF), Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund under the Urban Financing Partnership Facility (UCCRTF)

Modality:Grant/Loan

Department: Southeast Asia Department

Sector:Urban development

Team: Sameer Kamal Satoshi IshiiAlexander Nash Okju Jeong (UCCRTF) Cao HangVirginia VillanuevaMaricar Barrogo Javier Coloma Brotons Tien Pham QuangThuy Trang Dang

Wastewater treatment

Stormwater drainage

The classic urban development problems in Cambodia and Viet Nam

in Viet Nam

Concrete channels and

embankments

Natural water courses and natural edge

Lowers infrastructure capacity requirements Lower

cost

Replacewith

Nature-based wastewater treatment system

in Cambodia

Stormwater runo�mitigated by absorbing

surfaces rather than traditional impermeable

concrete or bitumen

Drains are permeable and planted, allowing water to be retained,

absorbed, and transpired

Retention basins are permeable and

act like sponges

The principle

Slow down flow accumulation and lower peak discharge rates.

Retain the natural, pre-urbanization characteristics of the watershed

Waterquality

To convince decision-makers and engineers of the merits and security

Develop robust empirically supported design standards with adequate safety margins

Clarify unit capital costs (for estimating, for bills of quantity); suppliers; and operating costs

Demonstrate the economic benefits

Improve water quality using nature-based treatment processes, such as filtering biotopes

Provide access to water: a key step in generating demand for clean water and a clean environment

Flood protection

Water-sensitive design for flood protection and water

quality improvements

Wastewater treatment, storm water drainage, and flood protection: these are classic urban development problems in Cambodia and Viet Nam.

Look for ways to work with nature, using natural processes and ways to solve these problems in a sustainable way, such as by replacing concrete channels and embankments with natural water courses. The quality of water resources and city life will both improve as a result.Examples:• Nature-based wastewater treatment in Cambodia• Water-sensitive design for flood protection and water

quality improvements• Storm water runoff mitigation using absorbing surfaces

instead of traditional impermeable concrete or bitumen• Permeable drains for water to be retained, absorbed, and

transpired• Permeable retention basins that act like sponges

“The principle is to retain the natural pre-urbanization characteristics of the watershed, which creates lower peak discharge rates. In turn, this lowers costs and reduces the capacity requirements of the infrastructure.”

Alexander NashUrban Development Specialist, Southeast Asia Department

Find out more: Cambodia: Integrated Urban Environmental Management in the Tonle Sap Basin Project

Viet Nam: Secondary Green Cities Development Project

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42

Department: Information Technology Department

Year: 2019

Project name: challenges.adb.org WHAT IS IT?

THE PLATFORM AT A GLANCE

OPEN INNOVATION AND CROWDSOURCING PLATFORM

2,000innovatorsfrom 70+ countries

500solutions

10challenges

Team: Marc Lepage Kristina Tiglao Aaronessa Mangubat

A growing network of

Digital ID An inclusive and sustainable

ID solution for those without formal identity

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for

Trust in Fintech A proof of concept that

uses AI to facilitate know-your-customer procedures

Digital PaymentsA digital wallet to change

the way ADB transacts within the bank and beyond

Digital Skills for Today’s Workforce

Accelerate ADB’s transformation through

digital fitness

Future-Proofing for the Water Crisis

A solution to address water shortages or flooding in Asia

Agri-Fintech A solution to make

small-scale farming in Asia profitable and sustainable

HOW IT WORKS

Application Evaluation Awarding Piloting

PREVIOUS CHALLENGES

hosted—more coming!

A database of

What: A platform to crowdsource solutions Why: To get breakthrough ideas for institutional and development challenges

Who can give a challenge: Any ADB individual, team, or partners Who can give a solution: Start-ups, universities, industry players, and others

Contact: challenges@adb.org

Publish challenge, solvers apply to

challenges(2-3 months)

Shortlistsolutions(2 weeks)

Pitch solutions, demo of prototypes,

selection (1-2 days)

Consider selected solution for pilot

(1-9 months)

Online MentoringChallenge team provides online mentoring and support

REAL CHALLENGE. REAL IMPACT.

Having a crowdsourcing platform is a great way to match challenges with innovative solutions, especially when it is accessible to any individual within ADB, and links them to potential external partners, including universities and industry players.

ADB staff publish a challenge they are looking to address, and solvers have 2–3 months to pitch solutions. After a 2-week shortlisting period, candidates have the opportunity to pitch and demonstrate their ideas. The winner’s idea is then piloted over a period of 1–9 months. All along, the process is supported by online mentoring from the ADB Challenge team.

“The platform can be used for any business or development-related challenge that requires an innovative solution. We now have a network of over 2,000 innovators, and a database of 500 solutions. With 10 challenges already hosted in a range of fields, we have plenty more coming.”

Kristina TiglaoSenior IT Officer (Digital Partnerships)IT Digital Innovation and Architecture, IT Department

Find out more: challenges.adb.org

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43

PPFD Digital Assistant

PROJECT NAME: PPFD Digital Assistant

YEAR:2019

FUNDING: ADB Internal Budget

MODALITY: Sandbox Project under Digital Agenda Stage I

DEPARTMENT: Procurement, Portfolio, and Financial Management Department

SECTOR:Multisector

Supported by the whole Procurement, Portfolio, and Financial Management Department team

TEAM: Xiufeng Zhao Dominador Jose C. Rivera III Jasper E. Florendo Karen Joy R. Trillanes-Panton Odessa Dyloco-Canto

CHALLENGE Search and find pertinent instructions on project implementation procedures and instructions

Can be hundreds of files when the search covers more policy documents such as operations manuals, staff instructions, guidance notes, etc.

TIME CONSUMING DUE TO

• Instructions buried in multipleADB documents

• Files and documents are indifferent locations/websites

• Knowing what challenges ADBclients are facing is challenging

SOLUTION Harness artificial intelligence (AI) and provide easy ways to access information Digital assistant Q&As powered by AI

Search of Project Administration Instructions augmented by AI

Know Your Customer (KYC) utilizing analytical dashboards and insights

Offline support provided by qualified experts (to be replaced by mini-Quora)

NEXT STEPS 1. Expand scope to cover

operations manuals, staff instructions, guidance notes, use of consultants, etc.

2. Smart contracts

3. Channel for other AI-powered tools such as a Humanoid Robot, Pepper

4. Quick analytics and insights

5. Provisioning of data and reports

DigitalAssist_07_050520.indd 1 5/5/20 8:48 AM

The challenge: Zeroing in on the right information on project implementation procedures and instructions can be frustrating and time-consuming. Files, such as operations manuals, guidance notes, and staff instructions, are in different places.

Solution: Use artificial intelligence to provide easy access to the needed documents via a digital assistant. This is a sandbox project under ADB’s Digital Agenda Stage 1.

Next step: Expand the scope to cover consulting services operations manuals, staff instructions, and guidance notes. The scope will include smart contracts, quick analytics and insights, and access to data and reports.

“This makes know-your-customer processes a lot easier, and it utilizes analytical dashboards and insights. Offline support will be provided by qualified experts and, in time, the system will be even better, when it’s offered through a mini-Quora.”

Xiufeng ZhaoSenior Portfolio Management Specialist, Procurement, Portfolio, and Financial Management Department

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44

Department: East Asia Department

Year: 2019

Funding: $200 million

Modality: Loan

Sector:Transport

Team: Arun Ramamurthy

Project name: PRC: Guizhou Gui’an New District New Urbanization Smart Transport System Development Project (51366-001)

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

SMART TRANSPORTIN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Curb tra c congestion and other related negative impacts,

such as pollution and transport safety, by providing advanced technological

intervention

The proposed project aims to assist Gui'an New District in developing innovative solutions to:

Demonstrateintegrated smart

transport development for other cities

to adapt

Tech

nica

l Des

ign

Intelligent Transport System

An integrated tra�c operations and safety

and emergency management system

A multimodal transportation

systems management and operations center

Real-time tra�c and road-weather

monitoring

Sustainable transport infrastructure

Electric vehicle charging stations

Clean energy buses

Bus stations

Collaboration and Knowledge Partnerships

A demonstration zone for research and development on vehicle communication

technologies will create shareable knowledge in

this key sector

Implementation Arrangements

Capacity development for city authorities to deliver and manage the innovative transport systems

Human-centered design

Easy navigation

Real-time responsiveness

Narrow the digital divide

The Gui’an New District in Guizhou, People’s Republic of China was established in 2014. Now, it needs to curb traffic congestion and the related ills of pollution and transport accidents. If this project can demonstrate integrated smart transport using advanced technology, it can serve as a model for other cities.

An intelligent transport system provides real-time traffic and road–weather monitoring, provides a management and operations system for multimodal transportation, and integrates the traffic operations system with the safety and emergency management system. Sustainable transport infrastructure includes Wi-Fi–enabled bus stations, clean energy buses, and electric vehicle charging stations.

“The project also includes collaboration and knowledge partnerships, with on-vehicle communication technologies. Human-centered design ensures a transport system that is responsive to passenger needs in real time, is easy to navigate, and narrows the digital divide in the city.”

Arun RamamurthySenior Infrastructure Specialist (Digital Technology), East Asia Department

Find out more: China, People’s Republic of: Guizhou Gui’an New District New Urbanization Smart Transport System Development Project

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45

Department: South Asia Department

Year (of approval): 2015

Team: Naresh GiriPramod PudasainiJitendra Bothara

Project name: Support for project implementation of the Nepal Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program (TA-8910 NEP): Developing Earthquake-Resilient Type Designs of Remote Schools Using Locally Available Materials

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTIONS

EARTHQUAKE-RESILIENT SCHOOLS IN NEPAL

NEXT STEPS

Funding:Grant

Modality:Technical assistance

Sector:Education

Locally available construction materials such as stone and mud

are not considered suitable for earthquake-resilient construction

Utilizing modern construction materials to reconstruct remote

schools damaged by the 2015 earthquake is extremely challenging

Not permitted under the Nepal National Building Code (NBC) for schools unless compliance with the NBC is scientifically demonstrated

Transport of materials would be di�cult, no road access,

and very expensive

Local materials and skills

Using stone and mud withinnovative techniques that proved to be earthquake-resilient

Demonstrated through in-depth involving shake table tests of building models and computer modeling

School building designs

Compliance with the NBC

Several approved designs

The techniques can be replicated en masse around the world to save lives

The proposed construction materials and techniques are highly cost-e�ective and environmentally sustainable

Disseminate and implement techniques to reduce seismic risk and to protect the environment

Implement through community

mobilization

Include in course curricula in training

institutes

Include in building standards

Locally available construction materials such as stone and mud are not considered suitable for earthquake-resilient construction and are not permitted under the Nepal National Building Code for schools unless compliance with the code is scientifically demonstrated. At the same time, many obstacles hinder transport of modern construction materials to reconstruct remote schools damaged by the 2015 earthquake.

ADB-funded technical assistance showed that by using innovative techniques, stone and mud—both highly cost-effective and environmentally sustainable materials—can be used to construct earthquake-resilient buildings.

“The project demonstrated compliance with the National Building Code through in-depth tests of building models and computer modeling. We now have several approved designs which can be replicated in other settings.”

Naresh GiriSenior Project Officer (Urban Development), Nepal Resident Mission

Find out more: Nepal: Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project

Knowledge Partnerships

46

CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEPS

THE GRADUATION APPROACH TO POVERTY REDUCTION

Adaptation of the graduation approach to unique circumstances, including in the context of development-induced displacement (involuntary resettlement).

ADB projects often don’t take a holistic

approach to poverty reduction

Evidence from ADB member countries on

the graduation approach is lacking

Project name:Testing the Graduation Approach to End Extreme Poverty in the Philippines (TA 9017-REG, TA 8332-REG, TA 9592-REG, TA 9534-REG) Year:2016-PresentFunding: ADB technical assistance - $1,240,800Government - $1,606,320Modality: Grant

Departments: East Asia Department, Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Southeast Asia Department

Sector:Social protection

Team: Karin Schelzig Lainie Thomas Yukiko ItoAmir Jilani

Watch a video: Four Things to Know About the Graduation Approach

Collection of endline data, part of the impact evaluation, will take place in June 2020.

Evidence will inform the government’s poverty reduction strategy and approach to social protection for the poor and vulnerable.

Poverty is multidimensional

The graduation approachStrengthens resilience and tackles the multifaceted constraints

faced by the poorest and most vulnerable households

A model for innovation within ADB

Pooled funding from four sources to

finance a pilot and impact evaluation

Graduation Working Group by the Social Development

Thematic Group established with experts across

departments and divisions

Joint support for project design, implementation, 

evaluation, and knowledge generation

A "One ADB" team is demonstrating how the graduation approach can contribute to Strategy 2030.

Cashtransfers

Asset transfers

Technical and business skills

training

Coaching and mentoring

Psychosocial support, access to banking and

health services, behavior change communication.

1 2 3 4

The implementation phase of a pilot to test several variations of the graduation approach is

in full swing in the Philippines.

New TA will apply the graduation approach to improve resilience of vulnerable communities resettled under the Malolos–Clark Railway Project in the Philippines.

Watch an Insight Thursday presentation

(March 2019)

Read an ADB blog: What is the graduation

approach?

Exploration of further application of graduation in developing member countries

ADB will follow up on interest in adapting the approach in Mongolia and Tamil Nadu, India.

s

Poverty is a multidimensional problem, including inadequate access to finance, health services, productive livelihoods, and education, and no single intervention can tackle it in isolation. ADB projects, however, don’t always take a holistic approach to poverty reduction.

The graduation approach is a social protection innovation that builds on the foundation of social assistance with a holistic set of poverty reduction interventions for poor households. The approach tackles the multiple facets of deprivation through carefully sequenced and time-bound solutions, usually delivered over 18–36 months. The interventions combine targeted social assistance with an asset transfer, support for financial inclusion, tailored skills training, livelihood development, social inclusion, and psychosocial support. Based on promising global evidence, ADB is now testing and evaluating several variations of the graduation approach in the Philippines. The graduation approach has become a model for innovation within ADB. The project pooled funding from four regional technical assistance projects for innovation, civil society participation, social protection, and impact evaluation, collectively demonstrating what effective engagement with diverse stakeholders, including nongovernment organizations, government agencies, and research institutes, looks like.

“The social development thematic group established a graduation working group comprising experts across departments and divisions to support project design, implementation, evaluation, and knowledge generation on graduation across ADB. In this way, a ‘One ADB’ team is demonstrating how the graduation approach can contribute to Strategy 2030.”

Amir JilaniSocial Sector Economist, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Find out more: • Regional: Unlocking Innovation for Development• Developing Impact Evaluation Methodologies, Approaches, and

Capacities in Selected Developing Member Countries (Subproject 1)• Deepening Civil Society Engagement for Development Effectiveness• Regional: Enhancing ADB’s Support for Social Protection to Achieve

the Sustainable Development GoalsWatch a video: • Four Things to Know About the Graduation Approach• Watch an Insight Thursday presentationRead an ADB blog: What is the “graduation approach”?

Knowledge Partnerships

47

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEPS

YOUTH FOR ASIA Project name:Youth-led Development through "Youth for Asia"

Year:2015

Funding: $1 million

Modality: Technical assistance

Department: Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Sector:Crosscutting sectors

Team: Chris MorrisOliver ChapmanChirag GuptaYouth for Asia team

­.com/YouthForAsia

Under- and unemployed young people are particularly

excluded from the opportunities of participation,

leadership, and leading productive lives.

ADB has under-utilized its potential to engage young people in project design to make the projects

more responsive to the needs of young people across the region.

ADB Youth for Asia is a unique initiative where young people join cross-generational project teams bringing innovative perspectives to

develop sustainable, resilient, and inclusive solutions. 

Action:

Young people (co-)leading components in the design and implementation of projects.

Second Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project in Cambodia: Direct placement of a local and international youth during implementation

Insight:

Young people (co-)leading components in evaluation and research using innovative methodologies.

Youth Finsights in 2018: An innovative data collection and analysis of 5,250+ youth across Indonesia

Voice:

Young people advocating for change, (co-)leading campaigns, and influencing youth-led development

2019 Asia Clean Energy Forum: A platform for youth to share solutions and innovations in the clean energy space

Institutionalize Youth for Asia as a

permanent program in ADB to sustain youth

inclusion in ADB operations

Scale up projects with proven

approaches of engaging young people in the

region

Facilitate collaboration

between developing member countries,

resident missions, and youth organizations

twitter.com/youthforasia

instagram.com/youthforasia

2.2 billionyoung people

under the age of 30

22 projects completed by Youth for Asia

7Asian Youth

Forums delivered

linkedin.com/showcase/youthforasia

There are 2.2 billion young people under the age of 30 in Asia and the Pacific, but they are generally excluded from participating in development and leadership. ADB recognizes youth and youth-led organizations as important partners in sustainable development: Strategy 2030 prioritizes for greater investment countries that have high youth populations. However, low participation of young people in project design and implementation results in projects misaligned with their needs.

ADB’s Youth for Asia is a unique initiative, where young people join cross-generational project teams, bringing innovative perspectives to developing sustainable, resilient, and inclusive solutions. Young people have been brought in as co-leads for project design and implementation. One example is the Second Rural Water Supply and Sanitation project in Cambodia, where young people supported community health and sanitation awareness raising. Young people have also co-led project evaluation and research, using innovative methodologies such as online information campaigns and collecting data from over 5,000 young people across 34 provinces in Indonesia for the Youth Finsights project. ADB’s Youth for Asia team has supported multiple sector and thematic events, including ADB’s flagship 2019 Asia Clean Energy Forum. In 2019, Youth for Asia contributed to 22 ADB projects and participated in 8 ADB knowledge forums.

“ADB Youth for Asia is a pilot initiative to mainstream youth participation in selected ADB operations, from planning and design consultations to project implementation and monitoring. ADB will also engage with youth as a vital demographic, especially in low- and middle-income countries that have largely youthful populations.”

Chris MorrisHead, NGO and Civil Society Center, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Find out more: • Facebook ADB Youth For Asia • Twitter ADB Youth For Asia• Instagram ADB Youth For Asia• LinkedIn ADB Youth For Asia

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Department: Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Funding: TA 9619 - $0.25 millionTA 9815 - $4.9 million

Modality: Technical assistance

Sector:Crosscutting sectors

Project name:TA 9619-REG: Demonstrating Future Thinking and Foresight in Developing Member CountriesTA 0039-REG: Support for Innovation and Technology Partnerships in Asia and the Pacific

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEPS

INNOVATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND FUTURES AND FORESIGHT

Year:2019

Provide new approaches or new ways to respond to the needs of developing member countries (DMCs)

Team: Susann RothVivek RamanMary Jane Carangal-San JoseMaribeth Cesicar-SanvictoresJosephine AquinoDaniel Luis Beran

Read an article from Journal of Future Studies on ADB’s work

Example: Three energy challenges launched at the Asia Clean Energy Forum

Downstream opportunities: Grant recipients are eligible to receive funding from the High-Level Technology Fund, which is administered by ADB

Understanding DMCs’ innovation

ecosystems

innovation

ProcessesTechnology Innovation Challenge

Futures and Foresight in

DMCs

Innovation Framework

Innovation tools

Co-lead the ADB innovation framework and serve as secretariat

Test innovation tools and train staff at retreats, learning events, and ADB leadership programs

Collaborate with procurement department on launching ADB’s first Innovation Challenge

Collaborate with Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department on Asian Development Outlook 2020 thematic chapter on innovation

Pilot futures and foresight applications in countries to identify transformative investments

Explore how to support DMCs to run public sector innovation challenges and engage with private sector

Technology Innovation Challenge

Futures and Foresight in DMCs

Move from ad hoc to programmatic

approach

Set up an innovation hub. Build in-house

capacity and not rely on consultants

Mainstream foresight and futures thinking in ADB’s strategic work (country partnership strategies),

sector and thematic plans

Armenia Mongolia Timor-Leste

Learning from the pastProblem-focused

Learning from futuresSolution-focused

ADB relevance Position ADB as partner for long-term planning and trends

InnovationFoster inclusive and sustainable innovation

2010 2020 2030 2040

Planning with foresight Without

foresight

continuation continuation

reset reset

Read ADB blog “Tomorrowland: Applying futures studies and foresight in policy dialogue”

OpportunitiesIdentify new areas for sovereign lending

Innovation workstreams

How to break out of old patterns of thinking and provide new approaches or new ways to respond to the needs of ADB’s developing member countries (DMCs).

Technical assistance comprises multiple internal and external interlinked innovation workstreams. Internally, the Innovation Framework gives a coherent structure to ADB innovations. An in-house innovation challenge brought ideas to the surface, and innovation tools empowered staff. Externally, the technical assistance researched DMCs’ innovation ecosystems to better understand how to effectively engage with countries. Futures and foresight applications were then piloted in three DMCs to identify transformative investments. DMCs were also supported to run their own public sector innovation challenges.

“The futures and foresight work in Armenia, Mongolia, and Timor-Leste identified opportunities for new areas of sovereign lending, and bolstered ADB’s relevance as a long-term partner. The Technology Innovation Challenge yielded several responses that were launched at the 2020 ADB Clean Energy Forum, and there are significant downstream opportunities for grant recipients to procure high-level technology funded by ADB sovereign and private sector loans.”

Susann RothPrincipal Knowledge Sharing and Services Specialist, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department

Find out more: • Regional: Demonstrating Futures Thinking and Foresight in

Developing Member Countries• Regional: Support for Innovation and Technology Partnerships

in Asia and the PacificRead an article:• The Journal of Future Studies on ADB’s workRead ADB Blog:• “Tomorrowland: Applying futures studies and foresight in

policy dialogue”

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CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

Works on desktops and Android and iOS smart devices

NEXT STEPS

SMART WAYS TO SHARE KNOWLEDGE

Progressive web apps are much simpler and cheaper to develop and easier for users to install than a standard iOS or Android app

Read the Annual Report on your mobile device

Progressive web application technology

Features:

Project name: SMART READER: ADB Annual Report 2018

Year:2019

Department: Department of Communications

Sector:Knowledge

Team: Andrew PerrinChristopher CharlesonDuncan McLeodMa. Theresa Mercado

Produce a digital version of the

Annual Report optimized for smart devices

The Smart Reader could become the standard for packaging and

distributing ADB’s knowledge to digital readers

Provide a seamless reading

experience enriched by multimedia content

ADB’s Smart Reader adopts common newspaper app standards

for its design, navigation, and reading experience

Swipe, scroll, and tap to navigate around the Smart Reader and unlock all of its features

The Department of Communications will continue to test the technology, monitor its

usability, and continually improve the product as we move forward

and roll it out to other ADB knowledge products

adb.org/ar2018/digital

Make a large, complex ADB document engaging and easy to read on a mobile device.

Use progressive web application technology to produce an interface for ADB’s annual report that works on desktops and on Android and iOS smart devices. The web apps are much simpler and cheaper to develop and easier for users to install than a standard iOS or Android app. Proving that innovation doesn’t always mean inventing something new, this project takes existing technology and repurposes it for the ADB annual report, adopting common newspaper app standards for its design, navigation, and reading experience. The result? The reader uses swipe, scroll, and tap to navigate around the smart reader and unlock all its features in a seamless reading experience enriched by multimedia content.

“There are really cool animations you can do to highlight your data, and you can play videos within the document. You can save the app as a bookmark on your mobile device and the experience is identical to using an iOS or Android app.”

Andrew PerrinPrincipal Communications Specialist, Department of Communications

Find out more: Asian Development Bank 2018 Annual Report

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CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEPS

BIG DATA AND ANALYTICS FOR DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM IN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT AND BEYOND

SEZ development

framework

The rent seeking behavior and elite capture attitude

in the developments of special economic zones

(SEZs) and other projects

Need for evidence-based decision-making process

in the government and beyond

Ine�cient governance and

resource allocation

ECDDASHBOARD

Sectoral prioritization development

Closing the district

development gaps

Project name:KSTA 9488 PAK- Supporting economic corridor development through strategic planning frameworks

Year:2017

Funding: $2.4 million from the Department for International Development (United Kingdom) (DFID)

Modality: Grant funded by DFIDand administered bythe Central and West Asia Department (CWRD) Pakistan Resident Mission(PRM)

Department: PRM and Regional Cooperation and Operations Coordination Division of CWRD

Sector:Crosscutting sectors

Team: Guntur Sugiyarto and a team of consultants

Visit the project site:

Enables policy makers to conduct various scenario analyses including for developing SEZs as part of economic corridor development (ECD).

The result is objectively the most optimum development option based on best available information.

Read ADB Blog “Can big data help us make better development decisions?”

Institutionalize the dashboard by installing and housing it in the government's line ministries, universities, and think tanks to facilitate a regular evidence-based policy-making process and various assessments and analyses on key development issues.

Promote the dashboard for adoption and scaling up in other countries, including by writing an ADB blog.(https://blogs.adb.org/blog/can-big-data-hel p-us-make-better-development-decisions.)

Zonal valuation

system

ECD navigation

ddd

d

Adopt the dashboard for supporting planning in ECD and others, including for selecting a new project by introducing optimization and contextualization concepts in addition to the standard economic feasibility

Continuously updatethe data and system to make the dashboard more timely and relevant.

Make governance and resource allocation in developing economic corridors with special economic zones (SEZs) more efficient and provide an evidence base for better decision-making.

The economic corridor development dashboard enables policy makers to analyze scenarios on optimum site selection and comprehensive assessment, including for developing SEZs. Through the dashboard, policy makers can access the economic and other potentials of SEZs based on frameworks that have been integrated into the dashboard system.

Developers of SEZs will thus be able to consider existing infrastructure, industrial development, and urban planning. The dashboard will be key in closing development gaps between districts, making development more inclusive.

The result? Objectively the optimal development option, based on the best available information.

“The data and system to make the dashboard should be updated continuously to ensure it stays relevant. We’ll also be promoting it within ADB for better project selection. All this will improve overall efficiency, resource allocation, and governance.”

Guntur SugiyartoPrincipal Economist, Pakistan Resident Mission

Find out more: Pakistan: Supporting Economic Corridor Development through Strategic Planning Frameworks

Read a blog about big data for decision-making

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CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

NEXT STEPS

DATA SCIENCE AND ROBOTICS FOR AUDIT

Process automation and data science to supplement our auditors’ judgment

Traditional audit testing

The loan covenants tool

Classifying countries as low, medium, high risk

Limited auditors to incorporate more indicators which are not

easily assessable

Manual data gathering and

review

Takes a long time to

complete

Limited to small number of transaction samples

Manual and subjective

Incorporatesmachine learning using

Long Short-Term Memory

1. Continuousmonitoring system

Checks all treasury transactions

and send exception reports to the users on a

daily basis

Employs robotics process

automation concepts

2. eOps loan covenantchecking system

Automatically downloads project documents, converts each document to text

files, checks loan covenants clauses against eOps covenants monitoring pages, and produces

a summary of missing or mismatched clauses

Saves auditors an average of 40-60

hours of manually checking loan documents

3. Country priorityassessment model

Delivers a second opinion on which country the

Office of the Auditor General has to prioritize

for auditEmploys

broader data inputs and clustering (k-Means and

DBSCAN) to group countries into different

risk classification

Extracts news article titles from Standard & Poor's for the sentiment analysis

Applying it for all active projects in eOps

Further testing for accuracy and exception handling

The concept may be expanded to cover other tests for

completeness

Country priority assessment model

Exploring supervised machine learning to automatically classify

countries as low, medium, and high risk based on some indicators and/or factors

Project name: Transforming internal audit with data science and robotics process automation

Year:2019

Team: Do Keun Cho Wenyi A. Wang Pierre-Francois GadpailleAdrian C. EdrosaChrist Ian B. Badana Candy Chu-Chao

Traditional audit testing is time-consuming, entails manual data gathering and review, and is limited to a small number of transaction samples. As a result, classifying countries as low, medium, or high risk is too subjective and prevents incorporation of more indicators that could improve accuracy.

By automating the process and using data science to supplement auditors’ judgment, the system can be improved. The project comprises three elements. First, a continuous monitoring system checks all treasury transactions and sends exception reports daily, uses machine learning, and employs concepts from robotics process automation.

Second, the eOps loan covenant checking system automatically downloads project documents, converts them into text files, checks the loan covenant clauses, and summarizes any mismatches or missing clauses. This saves auditors an average of 40 to 60 hours of manual checking.

Third, the country priority assessment model delivers a second opinion on which country the Office of the Auditor General has to prioritize for audit, classifies countries by risk, and even extracts news articles from Standard & Poor’s news service for sentiment analysis.

“For the past few years, the Office of the Auditor General has been on this journey to innovate some of our processes for us to achieve efficiency and obtain greater assurance in our audits. We’ve also considered innovative ways to help strengthen and improve the internal control processes of our clients.”

Candy Chu-ChaoSenior Audit Officer, Office of the Auditor General

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CHALLENGES:

SOLUTION

WHAT’S NEXT

HARVESTING TACIT KNOWLEDGE USING DIGITAL DATA

Limited capacity to capture key know-how from projectsand internal processes.

Translating data into reusable, organizational knowledge,technology-enabled efficient business processes, and predictive insights.

Project name: Harvesting tacit knowledge using digital data

Year of implementation: 2020

Modality: Grant

Department: Central and West Asia Department

Sector:Cross-sector application

Team: Nasruminallah Mian Video documentation

during project life cycle in interview format with

running subtitles and voice translations in relevant languages.

Curated content to be made easily accessible

in a searchable database.

Key project data create “competitive project

indexing” across sectors and divisions to

raise project implementation

performance.

Choose the pilot area, plan pilot implementation, and assess results based on data.

Measure the “Gender Value for Money” of

infrastructure projects in the “project impact zone” by defining a set

of data points and running analytics. One can measure inclusivity

of projects using anonymized cellular

mobile data.

A country operations business plan (COBP)

and/or country partnership strategy

online application suite could enable smart

data-based comparisons between successive and

di�erent COBPs.

An ADB campus mobile app can assure an easy

indoor navigation system, generate data for O�ce of Administrative Services to manage the facility more

e�ciently. It can be integrated with the

corporate security phone and connect all resident

missions virtually.

A mobile app can be the most expeditious form of channel to secure timely

approvals from the Economic A�airs Division for mission concurrences,

technical assistance endorsements, Private

Sector Operations Department no-objection

certificates, meeting confirmations, etc.

Digital data from Process Improvements

S

Digital data for strategic competitiveness

ADB has limited capacity to capture key know-how from projects and internal processes and then translate those data into reusable organizational knowledge. Digital technology–enabled business processes could enhance productivity through data-driven predictive insights.

One good method of tapping into vital project know-how is video documentation during the project life cycle in an interview format with running subtitles and voice translation into various languages. The content can then be curated so that it is easily accessible in a searchable database. Another method for raising performance is cross-sector and cross-division indexing of key project data. This can raise the quality of project implementation, encourage collaboration, and generate key insights that can guide strategy and project design.

An ADB campus mobile app can assure an easy indoor navigation system and generate data for the Office of Administrative Services to manage the facility more efficiently. The app could be integrated with the corporate security phone application and connect all resident missions virtually. For a resident mission, a mobile app can also be the best way to secure timely routine approvals from the government for mission concurrences, technical assistance endorsements, no-objection certificates, and meeting confirmations.

“Infrastructure projects are sometimes criticized for achieving less than planned rates of return. Digital data generated periodically on the project could demonstrate the positive wider economic impacts and social gains.”

Nasruminallah MianSenior Program Officer, Pakistan Resident Mission

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Project name: Strengthening Safeguards Management in Southeast Asia (52059-001)

Year: 2018

Funding: Technical Assistance Special Fund

Modality: Technical assistance

Department: Southeast Asia Department

Sector:Safeguards

Team: Meenakshi Ajmera Syarifah Aman-Wooster Maria Lorena Cleto Elaeza Ladao-Abellar Edwin Lara Naning Mardiniah Antoine Morel Rangina Nazrieva Dinh Oanh Genevieve O'Farrell Sokha Ouk Melody Ovenden Phuc Quang Pham Indah Setyawati Vongphet Soukhavongsa Michiko Suga Kyoko Uematsu Astra Velasquez Judy Vermudo Zarah Pilapil

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

• Generate reports for submission to the chief compliance officer(CCO) using SharePoint data inputted into the tracking system to display data for the CCO's report.

• Supply SharePoint data to the Southeast Asia Department Management Team dashboard to provide a general picture of Southeast Asia Department projects under implementation and track their progress to ensure compliance.

• Incorporate other related applications that help systematize and increase efficiency in doing safeguards work, e.g., digital surveys, grievance redress mechanism tracking.

NEXT STEPS

SAFEGUARDSTRACKING SYSTEM

Web-based automated system for tracking safeguards performance

Help improve and make e�cient safeguards planning and implementation activities in projects (through regional technical assistance 9647).

Aligned with Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department Environment and Safeguards Division

• Input, check status, and track progress on safeguards.• Make the system accessible by resident missions and sector divisions.• Provide access to executing and implementing agencies.• Cover the environment, involuntary resettlement, and indigenous peoples.• Track the performance and progress of safeguard planning and

implementation activities in projects.• Assign different weights to key activities for safeguards specialists and the

executing and implementing agencies to ascertain compliance by projects atdifferent stages.

Synergy with existing

ADB monitoring systems

Tracking needed for the followingMonitoring report submissions

Failure to submit on time is equivalent to noncompliance.

Alerts and reminders on submission deadlines for relevant project team members (ADB and client) will help

ensure compliance.

Progress and updates on di¤erent activities related to

safeguards such as the establishment of grievance

redress mechanism, complaints, or grievances

received (if any).

Tracking is needed to monitor report submissions and/or progress updates. Failure to submit on time is equivalent to noncompliance, so alerts and reminders on submission deadlines for project team members (both ADB and client) will help ensure compliance. Timely progress reports and updates are needed on activities related to safeguards, such as the establishment of grievance redress and dispute resolution.

A web-based automated system for tracking safeguards performance will improve the efficiency of project safeguards planning and implementation. The system will be accessible by resident missions and sector divisions and will provide access to executing and implementing agencies.

“This project will cover the environment, involuntary resettlement, and indigenous peoples. It will track the performance and progress of safeguards planning and implementation and assign different weights to key activities for safeguards specialists, as well as the executing and implementing agencies, to ascertain compliance by projects at different stages.”

Meenakshi AjmeraPrincipal Safeguards Specialist, Southeast Asia Department

Find out more: Regional: Strengthening Safeguards Management in Southeast Asia

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Project name: Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Projects-I, II, and III

Loan 1755, Grant 0157, and Loan 3157

Year: Loan 1755-2000 Grant 0157-2009Loan 3157-2014

Funding: Loan 1755-SF Grant 0157-ADF Loan 3157-COL

Modality: Loans, grant

Department: South Asia Department

Sector:Water and other urban infrastructure and services

Team: Shiva PaudelPedro Miguel Pauleta De Almeida

In Nepal, water provision in small town communities was unreliable due to:

Intermittent supply

Dubious quality of the supplied water

CHALLENGE:

SOLUTION

Modernize the water operators to improve operational efficiency

NEXT STEPS

SMALL TOWNS WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM

Substandard, financially unsustainable, water

supply service providers

?

Corporatize the selected water operators to cater

to the needs of the growing population

Continue strengthening and building the capacity of the operators (water

users and sanitation committees)

Financially sustainable Town Development Fund as a financial intermediary

Strong and sustainable community water supply operators

Shared cost and ownership for implementation between the government and the users

Operation and maintenance of the water supply facilities

Water supply systems in small towns in Nepal

Continuously provide national quality standard

water

Watch video of the project

http://bit.ly/2OXVB0d 1.26 million peoplealready connected to the

water supply system

0.39 million peopleplanned for connection

In Nepal, water provision in small towns is unreliable because of intermittent supply, dubious quality of what water there is, and substandard and financially unsustainable water supply service providers.

Support the development of strong and sustainable community water supply operators who are responsible for operation and maintenance. The project uses a shared cost and ownership structure between the government and users, with a town development fund as intermediary.

“The result so far is that 1.26 million people are already connected to the water supply system, receiving water of national drinking water quality standard, and a further 390,000 are due to be connected soon.”

Shiva PaudelAssociate Project Officer (Infrastructure), South Asia Department

Find out more: Nepal: Second Small Towns Water Supply and Sanitation Sector Project

Watch a video: https://www.adb.org/news/videos/clean-water-brings-hygiene-and-happiness-nepals-small-towns

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USING GAMING TO TEACH ANTICORRUPTION METHODS

iACT to fight corruption!

The challenge: ADB staff, consultants, and contractors are duty-bound to safeguard the integrity of ADB operations and activities and to conduct themselves according to the highest ethical standards. However, there are limited opportunities for seminars or workshops on ADB’s Anticorruption Policy, Integrity Principles and Guidelines (IPG), and the Code of Conduct provisions. At the same time, hitting the books can be a tedious process when it’s not a subject you have chosen to immerse yourself in.

The innovation: In 2018, Office of Anticorruption and Integrity (OAI) created iPLAY iACT, an online game to engage and motivate staff to learn about the Anticorruption Policy, IPG, Code of Conduct, and relevant administrative orders. The success of iPLAY iACT showed the readiness of the ADB community to engage in digital solutions and to learn in a fun yet challenging way. On the back of that earlier success, the online course with gaming features “Are You an Integrity Champion?” was designed as a refresher for those who have completed the more academic Anticorruption and Integrity module, those who were looking for a crash course or a quick overview, and others who just wanted to play.

As ADB’s first gamified e-learning course, it has four levels of difficulty, and features bonus and penalties, with the player receiving a badge for each level completed.

Next step: The OAI is now developing the parameters to award certificates of completion to the players. It will also explore the possibility of crediting successful completion of the game to staff’s official learning record.

The e-learning course will be open to non-ADB personnel within the year.

Find out more: “Are You an Integrity Champion?” is currently available to anyone with an adb.org email address “At previous International Anticorruption Day events we used statements, images, murals, and sculptures to evoke discussion on the issues of corruption. Unfortunately, the impact of these displays was not quantifiable and their impact could not be measured. In 2018 we decided to leverage off our knowledge products and e-learning modules to create the iACT game.”

“The two games have enabled us to see how many people are keen to play and learn. They also use the most basic and effective teaching method of repetition (if you fail, you get the same question, which needs a new answer), which improves knowledge and awareness. They also assess the scores to establish that most players have a reasonable level of understanding of integrity and corruption.”

David BinnsDirector, Investigations DivisionOffice of Anticorruption and Integrity

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CHALLENGE:

SOLUTIONS

NEXT STEPS

WELL-BEING AND DEGROWTH MOVING BEYOND GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT

Mounting global pressure to move beyond GDP argued by Nobel Prize laureates Amartya Sen,

Joseph Stiglitz, and Elinor Ostrom

Contributes to climate change

Problematic externalization of

social and environmental costs

GDP as a narrow measure of human

development

Project name: Well-Being and Degrowth: Moving Beyond GDP

Year conceptualized: 2018

Funding: Pending

Modality: New transformative (and disruptive) concepts

Department: Pacific Department

Sectors:Conceptual innovation Crosscutting sectors (reduction of inequalities, climate change, environmental sustainability, governance, gender equality, regional cooperation, etc.)

Team: Ritu Verma

Other critical issues (meaning of development,

positional goods, values, unpaid work, etc.)

Only transactions with market price

and “value” counted

Widening income inequalities

Recalibrate development

Move beyond narrow confines of GDP

Innovate conceptual frameworks

Learn from living development alternatives (Asia and the Pacific)

Transformative (and disruptive) thinking

Be ahead of the curve

Information gathering, analysis

and design to further develop the

concept

Urgent research on new development

thinking and rare and/or living development

alternatives

Lessons learned and knowledge sharing from

regional solutions: Bhutan’s Gross National

Happiness

Uptake conceptual innovations from

international movements: Degrowth

Critical need for knowledge sharing

with leading experts, eminent

scholars

Scale up learnings from alternative

development frameworks

toward Strategy 2030

Engage in holistic solutions to

avert planetary crisis

Nobel Prize–winning economists argue that gross domestic product (GDP) is a narrow measure of human development and is problematic in a number of ways. GDP masks widening income inequalities, externalizes social and environmental costs, and only assigns value to transactions with a market price. Measuring development using GDP alone arguably contributes to climate change and exacerbates other critical issues such as the undervaluing of unpaid work.

Develop new conceptual frameworks and carry out urgent research on moving beyond the narrow confines of GDP, recalibrate measures of development, and engage in transformative out-of-the-box and disruptive thinking.

“There is a critical need for research and knowledge sharing with leading experts and eminent scholars. We need to scale up concepts and learnings from alternative development frameworks as ADB works toward achieving its vision laid out in Strategy 2030, and we need to engage in holistic solutions to avert planetary crisis.”

Ritu VermaPrincipal Social Development Specialist, Pacific Department

Find out more: Gross National Happiness: meaning, measure and degrowth in a living development alternative, Journal of Political Ecology.

Develop the concept, through research and analysis, and learn from existing alternatives, such as Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness measures, as well as innovative concepts and solutions from international movements such as degrowth.

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Innovation at ADB—it’s just the beginning By creating an innovation-friendly environment, ADB is finding new and better ways to achieve its mission to create a “prosperous, inclusive, resilient, sustainable Asia and Pacific region.” Innovation will grow in ways that reflect the unique structure and culture of ADB, but its efforts are also part of a global wave, with development partners, member countries, and other stakeholders all looking for ways to work smarter and achieve results in a sustainable way. By explicitly acknowledging the importance of innovation, ADB is making it easier for everyone in the organization to play their part and contribute their best efforts to this common aim.

ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City1550 Metro Manila. Philippineswww.adb.org

At the Asian Development Bank (ADB), innovation means change that adds value for clients. This publication shines the spotlight on outstanding innovators and showcases dozens of projects underway across the Asia and Pacific region where ADB is using innovative ways to meet its mission to help developing member countries reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of their people.

ADB’s Faces of Innovation

About the Asian Development Bank

ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region. Its main instruments for helping its developing member countries are policy dialogue, loans, equity investments, guarantees, grants, and technical assistance.