ADB to focus on poverty, aid fund replenishment

ADB to focus on poverty, aid fund replenishment

MANILA (AFP): The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will review
strategies tackling poverty and efforts to reinforce the bank's
main soft loan facility at annual talks in Thailand starting this
weekend, officials said.

The 33rd annual meeting at the northern Thai city of Chiang
Mai beginning Saturday will be attended by finance ministers and
central bank governors, who act as country directors of the
premier development bank in the region.

ADB is subscribed to by 58 member countries and territories,
comprising 42 from Asia and 16 donor nations from North America
and Europe. Japan and the United States are the largest
contributors.

ADB President Tadao Chino told AFP poverty reduction with
greater involvement of the private sector would be a key theme of
the meeting.

The Manila-based ADB approved unanimously a poverty-busting
strategy in November last year in which economic growth
programs will be given emphasis to improve the lot of illiterate
adults, minority groups and women among others.

Seventy percent of the world's poor people still live in Asia,
a region where 900 million people survive on less than a dollar a
day.

A further 10 million people were temporarily pushed into the
poverty pit by the Asian financial crisis which struck in 1997.

Chino said the ADB meeting would review the recovery of the
Asian economies from the crisis and the implementation of reforms
in the region.

"We need to stress that if governments become complacent about
these reforms because of recovery, there is a risk that investor
confidence will be eroded and economic recovery may be stifled,"
he said.

Chino said the weekend meeting would also tackle the question
of replenishing the bank's soft loan facility, the Asian
Development Fund, for the 2001-2004 term currently under
negotiations and expected to be completed in September.

Replenishment talks on the US$6.3 billion Asian Development
Fund, financed largely from direct contributions from donors
began in October last year after Western donors led by the United
States made it clear that the bank must first show a clearer plan
to fight the region's staggering poverty.

Poverty will also be the focus of anti-globalization groups
out to disrupt the ADB talks, for which tight security will be
provided by about 3,000 police.

"ADB projects are exacerbating poverty, destroying the
environment, and undermining the rights, livelihoods and food
security of local communities throughout this region," a Thai
coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has charged.
But Chino is unperturbed.

"I do not have concern about those people. I welcome their
interest in this annual meeting," he said.

Chino said the ADB never failed to obtain the views of NGOs
and civil society in every process of its anti-poverty
programs.