Sustainable Development, Environment and Poverty Nexus

Abstract

Tne Asian Development Bank's January 1989 External Panel Report "The Asian Development Bank in the 1990s" recommended that the overall goai of the Bank for the 1990s should be the. improvement of living conditions in DMCs through income growth, progress in social conditions, and protection of the environment, and that the Bank should assign highest prior:ty to assisting the most disadvantaged and vulnerable social groups. At the 1992 Annual Meeting or the Bank held in Hong Kong, the issues of environment protection and poverty alleviation received considerable attention, with the Bank's Governors indicating a desire to see a stronger linkage between poverty alleviation and the Bank’s program on environment. In fact. President Kimimasa Taruiruzu, in his dosing statement to the .Annual Meeting, observed: Tne issue of poverty' emerged as a major theme of our meeting—alongside that of resource mobilization and the environment. Problems concerning population arid social development were emphasized and the need to enhance the role of women in development was wideiv voiced.