Asian Development Bank (ADB)

• It envisions a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty in the region.
• ADB assists its members, and partners, by providing loans, technical assistance, grants, and equity investments to promote social and economic development.
• ADB maximizes the development impact of its assistance by facilitating policy dialogues, providing advisory services, and mobilizing financial resources through co-financing operations that tap official, commercial, and export credit sources.

Members

ADB has now 68 members—of which 49 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside.

Organization

• Board of Governors: The Agreement Establishing the Asian Development Bank, known as the ADB Charter, vests all the powers of the institution in the Board of Governors, which in turn delegates some of these powers to the Board of Directors. The Board of Governors meets formally once a year during ADB’s Annual Meeting.
• Board of Directors: The Board of Directors is responsible for the direction of the general operations of the Bank. The Board (i) takes decisions concerning policies of the Bank, and loans, guarantees, investments, and technical assistance by the Bank, (ii) approves borrowings by the Bank, (iii) clears the financial accounts of the Bank for approval by the Board of Governors, and (iv) approve the budgets of the Bank.
• Management: The President heads a management team comprising six Vice-Presidents. The team supervises the work of ADB’s operational, administrative, and knowledge departments.

Funds and Resources

• Most of ADB’s lending comes from its ordinary capital resources, offered at near-market terms to lower- to middle-income countries, and beginning in 2017, at very low interest rates to lower-income countries.
• ADB also provides loans and grants from Special Funds, of which the Asian Development Fund is the largest. The Asian Development Fund offers grants that help reduce poverty in ADB’s poorest borrowing countries.

Voting Rights

• It is modeled closely on the World Bank and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with members’ capital subscriptions.
• The top 5 shareholders in ADB are Japan (15.6%), the United States (15.6%), the People’s Republic of China (6.4%), India (6.3%), and Australia (5.8%).

India and ADB

• ADB’s support to India aims to accelerate economic transformation by building industrial competitiveness, creating jobs, accelerating the growth of low-income states, and addressing environmental and climate change challenges.
• India was a founding member of ADB and is now the fourth-largest shareholder, but operations in the country began only in 1986 when India opted to become a borrowing member.

Country Partnership Strategy (2018-2022)

• Country Partnership Strategy (CPS), 2018–2022 for India aims to support the government’s goal of faster, inclusive, and sustainable growth accompanied by rapid economic transformation and job creation.
• The CPS has five principles to enhance value addition, maximize impact, and sharpen the focus of ADB operations in support of India’s priorities.
• In line with these, ADB operations will:
  • Be driven by front-end strategic studies to identify and prioritize transformative investments and associated policy advice;
  • Adopt a synergic approach across sectors and themes;
  • Align assistance with the government’s strategies and flagship programs, as well as its commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals;
  • Progressively enhance engagement and forge partnerships with low-income states;
  • Integrate capacity development as an operational priority.
• Recently ADB Approved $1.5 Billion Financing to Support India’s COVID-19 Response.

origins

• ADB was conceived in the early 1960s as a financial institution that would be Asian in character and foster economic growth and cooperation in one of the poorest regions in the world.
• A resolution passed at the first Ministerial Conference on Asian Economic Cooperation held by the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East in 1963 set that vision on the way to becoming reality.
• The Philippines capital of Manila was chosen to host the new institution, which opened on 19 December 1966, with 31 members that came together to serve a predominantly agricultural region.
• During the 1960s, ADB focused much of its assistance on food production and rural development.

Strategy 2030 Achieving a Prosperous, Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable Asia and the Pacific

• ADB’s long-term corporate strategy to 2030 sets the course for ADB’s efforts to respond
  effectively to the Asia and Pacific region’s changing needs.
• Under Strategy 2030, ADB will expand its vision to achieve a prosperous, inclusive,
  resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific while sustaining its efforts to eradicate
  extreme poverty.