The original development objectives were to achieve sustainable improvements in public health and increase economic development of Ho Chi Minh City. These objectives, especially that related to economic development, were highly ambitious and difficult to measure. According to the design, they were to be attained through upgrading urban environmental conditions, reducing flooding incidence, and developing institutions to manage drainage and wastewater services in a sustainable manner. This was inadequate for a project with such broad objectives. The breadth of design needed to be commensurate with the scope of the goals to be achieved. Design should therefore have encompassed the financing of a considerably wider range of public infrastructure (for example, transport and energy provision), as well as focusing on the legal and regulatory environment and the policies necessary to bring the required investments about.