This book succinctly describes how a large hydro dam in a poor country with weak capacity was successfully prepared by a truly global development and financial partnership, by turning the natural resource curse on its head and tapping the state of the art to mitigate environmental and social impacts.

The water resources of the Mekong river catchment area, from China, through Thailand, Cambodia and Laos to Vietnam, are increasingly contested. Governments, companies and banks are driving new investment in roads, dams, diversions, irrigation schemes, navigation facilities, power plants and other emblems of conventional "development." Their plans and interventions pose multiple burdens and risks to the livelihoods of millions of people dependent on wetlands, floodplains, fisheries and aquatic resources.

These guidelines describe how a project-level design and monitoring framework should be developed and used throughout the project cycle for Asian Development Bank (ADB) sovereign operations and technical assistance projects. The design and monitoring framework is a key tool for project design, implementation, and evaluation, and provides the basis for ADB’s project performance management system. The guidelines are intended to help staff of ADB, government officers, consultants, project sponsors and borrowers, and other stakeholders prepare high-quality design and monitoring frameworks. They serve as an effective tool to ensure that ADB-financed projects contribute to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and Pacific region as envisaged in ADB’s Strategy 2030.