by Piyaporn Hawiset
19 March 2001
Strategy Integrates with International Development Goals for Poverty Reduction
The Asian Development Bank on March 14, 2001 launched its new long-term strategy to help the developing nations of Asia and the Pacific eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. The strategy is embodied in a new document, Moving the Poverty Reduction Agenda Forward in Asia and the Pacific, that spells out ADB's plans and priorities. The new strategy was a major reassessment of ADB's goals and policies that in 1998 had resulted in the announcement that extreme poverty for one in four Asians was an unacceptable human condition, and that poverty reduction would be the overarching goal of all ADB activities. The long-term strategic framework (LTSF) sets out an agenda for carrying out the poverty reduction strategy in the next 15 years.
To enhance its effectiveness and to remain relevant to the changing needs of the region, ADB has continually been adapting its priorities, assistance modalities, and organizational structure. ADB first reoriented its operational priorities in the early 1980s. This was followed by a change in the 1990s that resulted in more emphasis on social infrastructure, projects targeted at the poor, and projects to improve the environment.
The Asia and Pacific region has continued to change in profound ways since ADB formulated its earlier long-term strategy in 1990. The context in which ADB will operate between 2001 to 2010 or so will be dramatically different from that of the 1990s. The challenge of reducing deeply entrenched poverty in the region remains more daunting than ever, and requires new approaches and commitments.
ADB has integrated its new long-term strategy with the International Development Goals (IDGs), seven broad benchmarks for reducing poverty worldwide by 2015 that were agreed upon at a series of United Nations-sponsored world conferences during the past decade.
"ADB has chosen a 15-year timeframe for its new LTSF," says Shoji Nishimoto, director of ADB's Strategy and Policy Department, "because it correlates with the schedule for achieving the IDGs. ADB has been playing, and will continue to play, a large role in helping its developing member countries to reach these goals."
The International Development Goals are to:
- reduce the incidence of extreme poverty by half between 1990 and 2015;
- achieve 100 percent primary school enrolment by 2015;
- eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005;
- reduce infant and child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015;
- reduce maternal mortality ratios by threequarters between 1990 and 2015;
- expand access to reproductive health services to all women by 2015; and
- implement in all countries a national sustainable development strategy
by 2005 and to reverse the loss of environmental resources by 2015.
ADB's agenda for advancing the poverty reduction strategy recognizes three core areas of intervention:
- sustainable economic growth: broad-based, growth-promoting activities that
promote socially and environmentally responsible development;
- inclusive social development: investments in social support programs and
for equity and empowerment, especially for women and disadvantaged groups;
and
- governance for effective policies and institutions: support for public
sector management; legal and judicial reform; public accountability, and
procedures to give stakeholders more effective participation in decision
making.
These three core areas are complemented by three cross-cutting themes to broaden and deepen the impact of the core poverty reduction interventions:
- Promoting the role of the private sector in development, in consonance
with the private sector development strategy adopted by ADB last year, and
including the mobilization of private sector resources to address the challenges
of development;
- Supporting regional cooperation and integration for development, to provide
wider development options, address shared problems, and pool information;
and
- Addressing environmental sustainability, by putting environmental
considerations in the forefront of development planning, and reversing the
enormous and costly environmental degradation and damage that have already
occurred.
The LTSF reflects ADB's position as the only multilateral bank in Asia and the Pacific with a regional focus, and will emphasize ADB's role as a broad-based development institution.
"The development challenges of the region are far beyond the capacities of any one institution," says Mr. Nishimoto. "The LTSF will enable us to be selective in our investments and to take a long-term approach: to focus our resources on the things we do best, and to be more efficient in our operations." Greater selectivity in operations will be accompanied by a much stronger country and client focus, and this will be achieved through stronger country leadership and ownership of the development agenda.