The Khammouane Development Project (KDP) was approved by the Board on June 17, 2008. The project development objective (POD) is to strengthen the planning process and public financial management associated with the decentralized delivery of public services and infrastructure, including irrigation development, in Khammouane Province. KDP has two components: Component 1 is establishing a DDF, to provide Basic Block Grant to Districts to finance public infrastructure and services and Agriculture and Livelihood Grants (ALG) to support livelihoods improvement. It is also establishing a Provincial Development Fund (PDF), which provides grants to the Province for strategic investment sub-projects. It provides capacity building to the provincial government to: (a) adopt more transparent and participatory procedures for the planning and implementation of public investment to improve rural livelihoods; and (b) strengthen key provincial departments to implement and sustain these procedures. Component 2 assists the Province in rehabilitating existing irrigation facilities and constructing new ones along the Xe Bang Fai (XBF) River, in order to enhance food security in the dry season and to help mitigate the effects of flooding during the wet season.

?The overall focus of the assignment is to assist the Khammouane province in institutional development and capacity building activities related to post-disaster reconstruction. The key tasks are: 1. Development of institutional arrangement, operational systems and procedures for post-disaster reconstruction. The purpose of this task is to enhance existing provincial and district level institutional arrangements for post-disaster reconstruction, and to develop new arrangements if required. The aim is to ensure that responsibilities, functions, and procedures are well understood by the relevant authorities and likely sustainable. This will initially require review of current provincial and district arrangements for overall disaster management by PDMC and DDMC. Optimization of the existing institutional system will be achieved by developing specific institutional framework for post-disaster scenario for Province and District levels and linking with the overall national framework of disaster response and reconstruction frameworks. Consultations at the province level will be done with key stakeholders. This process will support the development of revised responsibilities, functions, and procedures for key areas such as: - Damage, Loss and Needs Assessment (DaLNA) - Post-Disaster Reconstruction Planning and Budgeting - Reconstruction Financing and Financial Management - Designing/Costing, Procurement and Contracting Post-Disaster Reconstruction Projects - Participatory Monitoring Framework for Post-Disaster Reconstruction Projects 2. Sub-National Capacity Development for Post-Disaster Reconstruction Needs In Khamaoune province, there is a certain pool of resources and amount of knowledge and experiences in disaster preparedness and emergency management. However, they have not been widely applied in public expenditure and financial management. While the provincial and disaster officials are able to interpret disaster management requirement and coordination activities, there is lack of capacities in the key areas defined in Task 1. The ADPC technical team will focus on maximum utilisation of the outputs under the Task 1 through capacity building activities. This will be important to ensure that the procedures and guidelines on post ?disaster reconstruction are well practiced by the province and district level official. The activities will include: - Provincial Level Training - On-the-job Mentoring and Support - Horizontal Learning 3. Monitoring and Evaluation of Post Disaster Reconstruction Interventions Based on the monitoring framework, the team will support KDP in the overall monitoring and evaluation of post-disaster reconstruction activities, both at the provincial and target district level. During the KDP work planning and review process meetings, the ADPC team will provide technical input on the monitoring formats and indicators. Regular field visits to the districts involved in post-disaster activities would be undertaken along with KDP officials 4. Mainstreaming, lesson learning and post-project sustainability This task is a reflection of the modality of the TA, as ?process-type project?, which is based on continual learning, feedback, and flexibility during implementation (discussed above). Therefore, the team will remain available to provide practical support to stakeholders including PDMC, DPT, and the KDP-PCS. When undertaking Tasks 1-3, the team will remain focused on how to mainstream revised procedures and how to increase the chances of post-project sustainability and upscaling to other districts (and provinces). These integrated activities will lead to the documentation of lessons (successes and challenges) and experiences.

The following are key outputs: - Organizing a Consultative Workshop on Damage, Loss and Needs Assessments (DaLNA) - Provincial Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) on DaLNA - Training package for provincial level training on DaLNA - Provincial level procedure and guideline for post-disaster reconstruction - Organizing Consultative Workshop on post disaster reconstruction financial management - Provincial Guidelines for Post Disaster Reconstruction Fund (PDRF) - Adapted KDP/DDF procedure for reconstruction sub-project design, costing and procurement - Monitoring framework for post-disaster reconstruction projects