Toward a New Asian Development Bank in a New Asia: Report of the Eminent Persons Group to The President of the Asian Development Bank

Abstract

By 2020 Asia will be dramatically transformed into a region that has largely conquered extreme poverty, with 90 percent of its people living in middle-income countries, and with a regional economy accounting for 45 percent of global GDP and 35 percent of world trade. “To effectively carry out its new role in a rapidly changing Asia, the Asian Development Bank must radically change itself, and adopt a new paradigm of development banking that allows it to be responsive to the region’s evolving needs between now and 2020,” said Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary- General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development and Chair of the Eminent Persons Group. The New ADB must become more focused, driven by three strategic directions: • Moving from fighting extensive poverty to supporting higher and more inclusive growth. • Moving from economic growth to environmentally sustainable growth. • Moving from a primarily national focus to a regional and global focus. The New ADB should focus on six core activities—infrastructure, financial sector development, energy and environment, regional integration, technological development, and knowledge management. A priority will be raising productivity and creating better paying jobs to meet the public’s rising expectations, while minimizing problems posed by rapid growth and social change. To meet these goals, the New ADB will need to rebuild its technical, financial, and economic expertise to standards that would earn the respect and confidence of more sophisticated clients in borrower countries and potential partners in the private sector.