The joint portfolio review meeting of the government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on the ADB assisted projects in Bangladesh ended here Sunday with a focus on improving the implementation process. The joint portfolio review meeting between the government of Bangladesh and the ADB took place during November 7-18 in the capital to further improve development outcomes, said an ADB release.

The review meeting concluded through a wrap-up meeting chaired jointly by Iqbal Mahmood, Senior Secretary of the Economic Relations Division and ADB Country Director M Teresa Kho.

Senior government officials, project directors, and ADB officials from its headquarters and the Bangladesh Resident Mission joined the meeting.

The discussions in the joint portfolio review meeting highlighted reducing start-up delays, early preparation and approval of Development Project Proposal (DPP), and strict adherence to project readiness filters in processing the ADB- assisted projects.

Teresa Kho in a statement said, “This review meeting is aimed at delivering faster development results and benefits to the people of Bangladesh by identifying project implementation bottlenecks and constraints to achieve development objectives.”

She said that the review meet agreed on time-bound actions with monitoring targets to improve the performance of the portfolio. ADB’s assistance to Bangladesh currently amounts at around one billion US dollars a year.

As one of the lead development partners in energy, water supply and sanitation, education, and transport sectors, ADB’s cumulative lending to Bangladesh amounts to $13.26 billion for 220 loans, while the technical assistance (TA) grants for 413 TA projects stood at $220.66 million until November 2012.

News: The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12