Pakistan Making a Difference in the Fight Against Poverty

Abstract

As Pakistan’s biggest multilateral development partner, ADB has assisted the Government of Pakistan in undertaking critical economic and governance reforms in the last decade, which contributed to steady economic growth and boosted spending on poverty reduction programs. Pakistan became a founding member of ADB in 1966, and since then has become ADB’s largest recipient in both number of loans and volume of assistance received—over $19.8 billion in loans to fund development from hydroelectric projects to banking for the poor, with about $14 billion disbursed as of the end of 2008. A record lending program in 2008 included $1.9 billion in disbursements and $1 billion in newly approved assistance.