Summary Results of the Terminal Evaluation for the “Strengthening of Activities in RuralDevelopment Engineering Center (RDEC) project Phase 2”
1. Summary of the Project
Name of County：

Name of evaluation： Terminal Evaluation of theBangladesh“Strengthening of Activities in Rural Development
Engineering Center (RDEC) project Phase 2”

Sector：Scheme：Technical Cooperation Project

Rural Infrastructure development
Office in charge：

Budget (Time of the Evaluation)：331millionYen

JICA Bangladesh Office
The project Period：

Counterpart Institution：Local Government Engineering

9, 2007 ～9, 2011( Four (4) Years)

Department, Ministry of Local Government, RuralDevelopment and Cooperatives
Related Institutions (Japan)：Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry& Fisheries
Other stakeholders：none

1-1. Background of the project
Rural development has been one of the highly prioritized sectors in order to tackle with the poverty in
Bangladesh where two-thirds of its population lives in rural area. Stable infrastructure is regarded as a
critical factor to improve people’s social and economic conditions in rural area. On the other hand, rural
infrastructure development is still insufficient in Bangladesh. LGED under the MLGRD& C has been
the implementing organization for construction and maintenance of Upazila, Union and village roads,
small irrigation facilities, village markets, etc. Although LGED is a highly functional organization withflexibility, its administration has been rather transient, which hampered to accumulate its richorganizational experiences. The Bangladesh government (GOB) established RDEC under LGED inorder to improve these circumstances. For RDEC to function as a technical core center in LGED, theJapanese Technical Cooperation project of the “Rural Development Engineering Center Setting-upproject” (Phase-I) was implemented from 2003 to 2006. This Phase-I achieved its purpose tosatisfactory level in terms of their ability of maintenance and collection of technical information, thereinforcement of the training section, and starting of the Step-up Plan. However, further capacity
development of engineers remained as urgent issue to be resolved, as well as the reinforcement of eachtechnical section in RDEC was still indispensable. To tackle with these remaining challenges, thePhase-II project (the Project) was requested to the Government of Japan (GOJ) by GOB, and theframework of the project was confirmed by both sides in August 2007 as described in R/D.
1-2. Contents of Assistance(1)Overall Goal
LGED implements rural infrastructure projects using technical standards developed by the Project.
(2)Project Purposev

Implementation capacity of RDEC for rural infrastructure development is strengthened.
(3)Outputs
1.

Technical capacity of engineers working at RDEC for planning and design is developed.

2. Technical capacity of engineers working at RDEC for quality control and maintenance isdeveloped.
3. Technology dissemination system of RDEC is improved.
(4)Inputs up to the Evaluation by the end of May, 2011
Japanese Side・ Six long-term experts (144MM) in Bangladesh and twelve short-term experts (23MM) weredispatched, and one short-term expert will be dispatched by the end of the Project.
・ Nine counterparts participated in training in Japan, and five counterparts participated in thetechnical exchange program in Cambodia.
・ GIS software to GIS Unit, Design software to Design Unit, Automatic CBR-Marshal Load Frame toQuality Control Unit, Automated Roughness Counter to Maintenance Unit, and Database software
to PM&E Unit have been procured. In total, equipment cost is BDT 40,150,873.
・BDT 18,325,837for necessary budget for the project implementation has been allocated.

Bangladeshi Side・ LGED has arranged her 31 officials as counterparts. The present Chief Engineer of LGED has beenand will be in charge of the Project Director by the end of the Project.
・ LGED has provided three working rooms for long term Japanese experts, and some working spaces
were provided to short-term experts. The project has used meeting room and auditorium of LGEDfor Working Group Meeting (WGM).
・ LGED has paid salary for LGED personnel, transportation, and training fee (venue, perdiem).
2. Members of the Evaluation TeamMs. Khadiza Begum, Deputy Secretary, Economic Relations Division (ERD), Ministry
Bangladeshiof Finance
SideDr. Saiyid Hassan Sikder, Deputy Chief, Planning Commission
Mr. Mohammad Zahurul Islam, Deputy Director, Implementation Monitoring andEvaluation Division (IMED)Mr. Md. Firoz Uddin, Deputy Chief, Local Government Division (LGD), Ministry ofLocal Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives
Mr. Md. Zahangir Alam, Additional Chief Engineer, Local Government Engineering
Department (LGED), Ministry of Local Government, RuralDevelopment and Cooperatives
Japanese Side Mr. Shigeki FURUTA, Leader, Senior Representative, JICA Bangladesh Office
Mr. Hiroshi TANAKA, Rural Infrastructure Development, Ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry’s and Fisheries, GOJ
Mr. Kazuyuki IKEDA, Cooperation Planning, Representative, JICA BangladeshOffice
Ms. Kazuko SHIRAI, Evaluation Analysis, Consulting Division, VSOC Co., Ltd
Schedule of evaluation

May 22nd to June 8th , 2011vi

Kind of Survey

Terminal

evaluation

3. Summary of the Evaluation Results
3-1. Implementation Result(1) Project Purpose
A guideline for design※ , quality control, and maintenance will be respectively developed by the end ofProject(indicator1), and one to three engineers at four main Units are now in-house trainers for fieldengineers on new knowledge and skills acquired through the Project activities (indicator 2). Therefore,
the Project Purpose is regarded as almost achieved.
(2) Output
As the result of project activities, the Outputs have been largely achieved as follows;
Output1：Technical capacity of engineers working at RDEC for planning and design is developed.
Nearly 100% of GIS Unit engineer mastered the technique for development of three types of thematic
maps for Disaster damage database and update technology using the satellite image, and for analysis
technology of satellite image which is needed for Upazila map update. Planning manual for Rural Road
Master Plan was developed in GIS Unit (indicator 1-1 to 1-3). The training course on Analysis, Designand Construction of Bridge has been conducted for total 52 LGED participants. The Road Structure
Manual Drawings for single lane RC girder bridges will be completed soon (indicator 1-4 to 1-7).
Output2：Technical capacity of engineers working at RDEC for quality control and maintenanceis developed.
The training courses on new technologies such as Tri-axial compression test were conducted for Districtlab engineers by QC Unit central lab engineers. The training on Field CBR test was also conducted atmost of the District lab by QC Unit Central lab engineers (indicator 2-1, 2-2). Maintenance guideline
including introduction of Soft and Cold Asphalt Mixture was revised. The ‘Hands-on Training Manual’
was printed for dissemination training for field engineers starting from July 2011(indicator 2-3, 2-4).
Output3：Technology dissemination system of RDEC is improved.
Although the software for the Training Management System (TMS) was installed, allocation of operator
has been delayed. Training Unit will complete to collect training data by the end of the Project(indicator3-1). WGM was held 28 times to report progress and exchange information of the Project(indicator3-2). Sustainability Plan will be completed by the end of the Project (indicator 3-3).
3-2. Summary of Evaluation results(1)Relevance・・Very HighNew technologies introduced by the project meet the need of Bangladeshi society which suffers fromharsh natural disasters. Rural infrastructure development is regarded as one of the important elementsfor pro-poor economic growth in GOB’s national policies. GOJ’s Country Assistance Program for
Bangladesh also prioritizes the economic growth of Bangladesh, regarding rural infrastructure as
indispensable for integrated rural development.

※Design Unit recognized to develop two kinds of manual for each double lane and single lane at first. However, the Unit decided todevelop one common manual which combines two kinds of lane as defined in the Design Criteria.

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(2)Effectiveness・・・High
The guidelines for design, quality control, and maintenance were developed (indicator1). Capacity ofengineers at four main Units of LGED HQ is enhanced to train field engineers (indicator2).
Achievements of Output1,2, and WGM largely contributed to the achievement of Project Purpose(3)Efficiency・・・Relatively High
Inputs from both Bangladeshi side and Japanese side have been delivered as planned. Amounts, quality,and timing of these inputs are appropriate so far. Short term experts delivered high level/locallyappropriate technologies which led a steady capacity development of LGED engineers. However, there
are some delays in TMS and PMS activities, and some technologies were not successful in test
construction and regarded difficult to apply.
(4)Impact・・・There are positive impacts of the project
There are nine kinds of developed technologies and manuals developed by the Project (indicator1).
Some activities which directly benefit the local residents, such as IRI survey and maintenance with Softand Cold Asphalt Mixture have already started (indicator2). It is an unexpected impact that GIS map
was recently featured on LGED’s Web site. When the project outputs are applied for all the LGED’s rural
infrastructure projects, enormous reduction in its cost is also expected.
(5)Sustainability・・・High
Sustainability Plan will be completed by four main Units before the Project ends. LGED holds
institutional strengths with its increasing budgets, and has empowered engineers’ capacity todisseminate new technologies, skills and knowledge for field engineers gained from the Project.
3-3. Conclusions
The capacity of LGED engineers, who keeps systemic organization, has been improved by providing thenew technologies such as IRI, Soft and Cold Asphalt Mixture on the project. It is expected that the ruraldevelopment project conducted by LGED could be improved by spreading the technologies to the local
office with CE’s leadership, high motivation of engineers and continuation of the working group after
completion of the project. Therefore, this project shall be finished as scheduled in September, 2011.
3-4. Recommendations(1) The remaining project activities such as Sustainability Plan and Training record database should becompleted.
(2) Inter Unit Coordination Committee which will be set as WGM, should be continuously andregularly held to monitor implementation of the Sustainability Plan.
(3) The useful results such as maintenance with GIS, alternative technologies for design, locallyavailable materials, need to be widely introduced to rural road projects implemented by LGED.
(4) Further utilization of the GIS technologies is recommended for water resource infrastructure
3-5. Lessons Learned
Discussion on future direction and detail actions taken after the project should be started at an earlystage so as to confirm sustainability of the project.

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