Achieving Development Effectiveness in Weakly Performing Countries (The Asian Development Bank’s Approach to Engaging with Weakly Performing Countries)

Abstract

This paper examines the experience of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) working in weakly performing countries (WPCs) and presents an approach for engaging them in development programs that seeks to strengthen the effectiveness of existing and future operations. There are major variations among ADB’s developing member countries (DMCs) that can be classified as weakly performing; no single or standardized approach applies uniformly across WPCs in Asia and the Pacific. The approach provides a framework for guiding planning and implementation, including a methodology for classifying WPCs and interventions that may be modified based on the country’s situation. Applying the approach will depend on country-specific circumstances and the decisions of experienced ADB staff and partners working in WPCs. Many of the region’s poor people live in DMCs that have weak governance, ineffective public administration and rule of law, and civil unrest. These countries have been referred to variously as WPCs, fragile states, low-income countries under stress (LICUS), and difficult partnership countries.1 Service delivery systems in such countries seldom function well, and the government’s ability to guarantee the basic security of its people is often limited. WPCs are more likely to experience large-scale and violent civil conflict than other low-income countries.2 The costs of weak performance include its impact on citizens, costs to neighboring countries, and global costs. One study estimated those costs at $100 billion, which is about twice the annual total of development assistance worldwide.3 In such settings, achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represents a major challenge.