Balochistan flood project ‘downgraded’ by World Bank over housing cap

ISLAMABAD: The World Bank has formally downgraded implementation progress on a $245 million flood rehabilitation project in Balochistan to ‘moderately unsatisfactory’, mainly after the government decided to cap beneficiary coverage for resilient housing.

“Progress remains uneven and continues to affect implementation,” said the Washington-based multilateral lending agency in its public disclosure, dated Aug 12, on the Integrated Flood Resilience & Adaptation Project (IFRAP), while downgrading implementation from ‘moderately satisfactory’ to ‘moderately unsatisfactory’ just six months earlier.

“Over 74,000 households have received the first tranche of housing support; however, the Project Steering Comm­ittee’s decision to cap beneficiary coverage, a financing gap for remaining eligible households, unresolved grievances, and communication challenges pose risks to implementation mentation progress and achievement of the project development objective,” it added.

Earlier, World Bank’s country director Boloromaa Amgaabazar had expressed concern over the decision to cap housing support to 62,966 first-tranche beneficiaries, and subsidy support to 97,000 people.

Under Component 1 of the project, covering irrigation, roads and bridges, the bank noted that a dedicated project director had been appointed, the project implementation unit (PIU) strengthened, detailed designs and bidding documents were nearly complete, and procurement had commenced. “However, all three project development objective (PDO)-linked output indicators have yet to be achieved.”

Under Component 2, relating to the early warning system (EWS) and hydro-met services, the bank said implementation momentum was improving following the appointment of a new deputy project director and the award of the automatic weather station (AWS) contract. However, onboarding of the system integrator and several critical procurements........

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