ADB allocates $2 billion for poverty reduction projects in Asia Pacific

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is allocating nearly $2 billion for poverty reduction related project in the region in the next four years.

In a press briefing yesterday, Shoji Nishimoto, ADB director for strategy and policy, said the amount represents 38 percent of the bank’s anti-poverty allocation up to 2005.

The ADB defines poverty a deprivation of essential assets and opportunities to which every human being is entitled.

The ADB funding is part of a grand plan to reduce poverty by 2015. The plan does not only involve the ADB but also various international development entities. In fact, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has entered into a "formal partnership" primarily to achieve this goal.

"We have agreed to replenish $6 billion over the four-year period starting January 2001. We have a strong pipeline, and we should be able to commit fully over $1.6 billion," Nishimoto said.

He added that the money would be allocated to governments interested in poverty reduction initially through promissory notes. It will then be disbursed as the need arises.

The amount represents 38 percent of ADB’s resources and the ratio will be raised to roughly 40 percent in the near future.

The remaining 60 percent or nearly $3.6 billion set for traditional projects or programs would indirectly be designed to address poverty alleviation. Among the traditional projects are related to energy, water and urban management.

ADB will first present the concept to interested governments, which have similar poverty alleviation programs. A series of consultations will then be conducted between government representatives and those of the various official development assistance (ODA) agencies like the ADB.

Nishimoto said that whatever conditions would be arrived at would be in accordance with the abilities or capabilities of the government’s concerned.

"The emphasis is that the government is the driver, the conditions or the framework should be in full consultation with the government representatives. And if they do not agree on the conditions after these consultations, they need not take our money."

Part of the framework expected to be presented to interested countries by the donor institutions are: the promotion of pro-poor sustainable economic growth through equitable policies; social development; good governance through efficient, transparent and accountable economic reforms; and harmony of national poverty strategies with that of global strategies.

Earlier projects funded or to be fund partially or in full by the ADB have certain conditions tied to it prior to its release.

For example, the $450-million Leyte-Mindanao Transmission Project of the National Power Corp. (Napocor) has a condition that the Power Reform legislation must first be passed prior to the release of the ADB fund counterpart amounting to $100 million.

The ADB said that the Asia Pacific plays a critical role in the plan to reduce poverty in a global scale.

The region is home to two-thirds of the world’s population, and more than 60 percent of its population is in the poverty threshold.

"If the world is to halve poverty by 2015, Asia and the Pacific must be the spearhead," said Tadao Chino, ADB president in his inaugural address before the ongoing First Asia and Pacific Forum on Poverty.