Emergency Flood Assistance Project after the 1998 and 1999 floods
After floods in 1998 caused damage estimated at US$40 million, about 2 percent of GDP, Tajikistan's Republican Project Coordination Unit for Liquidation of Consequences of Natural Disasters had repaired about 210 km of roads and fully completed seven bridges and structures by the credit's closing on 31 December 2001, with about 80 km of road repairs and three bridges unfinished, and the World Bank rated the outcome unsatisfactory.
210 km, road repairs completed at closing (about 80 km more unfinished), 2001-12-31. 40 million US dollars, damage from the 1998 floods as estimated, 1998. World Bank, Implementation Completion Report, Tajikistan Emergency Flood Assistance Project (IDA-31230, IDA-31231), Report No. 24209, 2002, retrieved 2026-10-02.
The move, and what it needed
A government emergency coordination unit repaired flood-damaged bridges, roads and embankments with an emergency IDA credit through local contractors, without the supervision capacity to hold them to quality.
Preconditions
- An emergency lending window that disburses within months
- Local contractors with experience of the work, which were scarce after the civil war
- A coordination unit with financial controls the lender trusts, which it lacked
Limits: The World Bank wrote the report and rated the outcome Unsatisfactory and sustainability Unlikely, mainly over poor works quality and financial management; it refused a further extension and closed the credit as planned. The record is filed as evidence of weak recovery capacity, not of success. The report says the roads actually damaged totalled about 105 km of the 210 km repaired, that works quality was poor because local firms lacked experience and supervision, and that only three of eight planned power substations were completed. The project came a year after the end of a five-year civil war, with a supplemental credit after further floods in 1999, so capacity was at a low point. The text is OCR of a scanned 2002 report, and the data sheet and narrative disagree on the original closing date (January 2000 against June 2001).