Evaluation of the World Bank’s Secondary Urban Development Program in the Kingdom of Bhutan

The Capstone team was asked to evaluate selected aspects of the World Bank’s secondary urban development program in selected pilot towns in Bhutan and to assess its relevance for other Bhutanese towns and other nations’ strategic urban development policy. Due to resource and information constraints, the Capstone team focused primarily on the Eastern Bhutanese town of Paro, which lies in the periphery of the capital city’s (Thimpu) airport. The project is divided into three components that compare key aspects of Thimpu's and Paro's organization and performance of particular interest to the client: the system of intergovernmental fiscal transfers; the delivery of basic urban services; and, the capacity to provide water supply and chlorination infrastructure. The Capstone team reviewed available research results of the World Bank-Bhutan field team, outputs from other multilateral research teams, and data and documents provided by the Paro local government. Once the institutional and urban infrastructure findings for Paro were aggregated and assessed, the Capstone team discussed the potential applicability of the findings to the other nine secondary pilot towns that will participate in the secondary urban development program. The Capstone team also assessed the World Bank’s underlying assumptions regarding the urban development strategy proposed for Bhutan in terms of its replicability to other developing nations with similar demographic, political, and economic conditions.