Hanoi (VNA)♏ – An ADB-funded project that strengthens agriculture science and technology in Vietnam was among the three winners of the Most Successful Development Project Awards selected by the bank’s Independent Evaluation, ​ADB said in its August 8 news release.

The Agriculture Science and Technology Project, supported by a 30 million USD ADB loan, helped the Vietnamese Government to institutionalise market-based research and bring knowledge and learning gained through research to serve farmers in remote upland areas, and to strengthen the human and physical capacity of the national system for agriculture science and technology. The project, which involved 42 organisations including research institutions, vocational schools, extension services, and farmer’s unions, strengthened government initiatives for stronger links between applying agricultural research to upgrading the skills of farmers, and helped the system become more responsive to the needs of smallholder farmers and private sector. The projects pioneering solar technology in Thailand, and ensuring access to quality education for the poor in Mongolia during the financial crisis also won the Most Successful Project Awards. The three, which best showcased the ADB’s contribution to Asia and the Pacific, were chosen from 80 projects reviewed by Independent Evaluation, an oversight body within ADB that assesses the organisation’s effectiveness, and has held the Most Successful Project Awards since 2015. “Evaluations not only provide evidence of project success or failure, and show whether precious public funds were well invested or not, but also lessons to improve the effectiveness of projects and solutions to unfolding development problems,” says Vinod Thomas, director general of Independent Evaluation at ADB. “The winning projects, as well as meeting their objectives, all offered lessons for achieving development results in their areas of operation, which can be replicated and enlarged in similar projects by ADB, other development institutions, and national decision makers. In short, they all offered tremendous learning experiences,” says Thomas.-VNA