Learning Lessons: Asian Development Fund Operations: A Decade of Supporting Poverty Reduction

Abstract

The Asian Development Fund (ADF) is ADB’s main concessional window for supporting poverty reduction in its poorer developing member countries in Asia and the Pacific. It is funded by international donors on a grant basis and has been replenished every four years since it was established in 1974. The current replenishment (ADF X, for 2009–2012) is the ninth. From 2001–2010, ADB approved $20 billion in ADF loans and grants for 29 countries, the most sizeable to Bangladesh, Viet Nam, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nepal. The main allocations were made to operations in transport ($4.3 billion), agriculture ($3.7 billion), multi-sector ($2.8 billion), water and municipal services ($2.3 billion), public sector management ($2.0 billion), education ($1.5 billion), and energy ($1.5 billion). Over the past decade, there were gradual increases in the allocation for transport and energy and a decline in allocations for agriculture and education.