As the Asian Development Bank prepares to convene its 40th annual meeting in Kyoto it faces a future in which its relevance might be in serious doubt and its very existence questionable. This is the natural conclusion to be drawn from forecasts that suggest abject poverty in Asia will be largely eliminated by 2020, hence rendering the bank’s basic mission redundant. ADB’s senior management is therefore under immense pressure to find ways to remain relevant, and to this end shortly after his appointment as the bank’s president in early 2005...Read more
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As the Asian Development Bank kicks off its 40th annual general meeting in Kyoto it is a natural juncture to take stock of the bank’s achievements and to plot the way forward. A report from a so-called Eminent Persons Group warns that the bank needs to reinvent itself or risk irrelevance as poverty disappears in the region.
The recommendation of the so-called Eminent Persons Group that the ADB needs a radical rethink if it is to remain relevant in an increasingly prosperous Asia has been endorsed by the bank’s president, Haruhiko Kuroda. The EPG envisaged a more streamlined organisation, one that more closely resembles a development agency, but as Kuroda tells IFR Asia’s Jonathan Rogers lending will continue to be the ADB’s core activity.
As an organisation sometimes accused of lacking a coherent and meaningful mandate, the ADB could do worse than focus on this one: making a difference to climate change. It has started down that route, but is it going fast enough?
The ADB is leading efforts to tackle the corruption that continues to plague the Asia Pacific. The bank hopes that its Second Governance and Anticorruption Plan, approved last July, will prove a potent weapon in the fight against graft.
The Eminent Persons Group was established in June 2006 to make recommendations on the future of the ADB in the context of a rapidly changing Asia Pacific. Lawrence Summers, US Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, was a member of the five-person group. He told IFR Asia’s Jonathan Rogers that the ADB must radically reshape its identity if it is to remain relevant.
The ADB’s infrastructure projects have frequently raised the hackles of the NGOs that closely monitor its activities on behalf of civil society. In September last year the NGO forum on the ADB produced a publication entitled “Snapshots of ADB Disasters” which it submitted to the bank’s safeguard review panel in the words of the forum “to show decision-makers, stakeholders and civil society advocates some of the ground-related social and environmental negative impacts of the bank’s interventions”. The publication backs the forum’s complaints...
The ADB’s chief economist Ifzal Ali believes the massive build-up of Asia’s foreign exchange reserves, which are rapidly approaching US$2.5trn, is creating a dangerous asset price bubble in the region. Asia’s reserve pile is symptomatic of deeper economic problems in the region, but despite the risks Ali sees a repeat of the Asian financial crisis as highly improbable.
Ten years after the Asian financial crisis and Asia seems to be powering on to ever greater heights. But growth rates across the region have still not recaptured the levels achieved before the crisis. In an abstract from the ADB’s Asian Development Outlook 2007, Frank Harrigan, the ADB’s assistant chief economist examines why that is.
The recent tsunami that hit the Solomon Islands was a sharp reminder of the deadly tsunami that devastated the coastline of several Asian countries on December 26 2004, and once again highlighted the level of damage that such disasters can wreak upon developing economies. The ADB is helping the Solomons and continues to help the countries affected by the earlier disaster.
Asia’s domestic bond markets have come a long way since the days of the regional financial crisis and the ADB has played its part in that process. The bank’s domestic issuance programme has been the most obvious success, but there are many issues that remain if the region’s fixed-income markets are to live up to their potential.
The ADB has put in place a new framework for credit enhancement products as it responds to the commercial banking market’s desire for well-defined and comprehensive guarantees, covering both commercial and political risks. Daniel Wagner, a senior guarantees and syndications specialist at the ADB, explains the bank’s thinking.