ADB 5-year focus in Pacific
Updated
Living standards are set to improve in the Pacific after the Asian Development Bank announced a five year plan for the region. The new 'Pacific Approach', as it is called, was launched simultaneously in Sydney, Manila, and a number of Pacific capitals this afternoon. This comes at a time when the ADB is considering a substantial increase in the assistance it gives to its Pacific Island members.
Presenter: Jemima Garrett
Speaker: Steve Pollard, Principal Pacific Economist with the Asian Development Bank
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GARRETT: The Asian Development Bank's new Pacific approach comes as the region faces up to the global economic crisis and the increasing impacts of climate change. Both those issues are dealt with in the new five-year strategy, but Steve Pollard, the Bank's Principal Pacific Economist, says the most important focus is on improving aid effectiveness.
POLLARD: The challenge of bringing about change for the better is not so much what but how, and how especially you do that within the context of the Pacific Islands, not just economies but societies and the political economy of the Pacific Islands.
GARRETT: So what changes will we see in the way that the Asian Development Bank does business in the Pacific?
POLLARD: At the end of this I think what we're heading for is a consensus for change, and when we had consultations in the islands this was something that the islands understood all too well. It leans to the traditions of taking difficult decisions in island settings in small close communities, dealing with some changes that potentially have major implications, which we may not have seen as being major.
GARRETT: Steve Pollard, principal author of the Asian Development Bank's new five-year Pacific approach. The new ADB strategy is a result of consultation across the region, and is in line with the Cairns Compact on Better Aid Coordination agreed by Pacific Island leaders at their summit in August. Its overarching goal is to provide sustained and resilient improvements in living standards. To do that it will focus on some key issues and sectors, including transport, information and communications technology, urban development, water and sanitation and education.
The Asian Development Bank already makes a big contribution to private sector development, but under the new approach that will be scaled up, as will efforts to improve public sector productivity and management of key government functions. More attention will be paid to engaging women, young people and rural and outer islanders in the economic life of the region.
Since the global economic crisis started to bite many multilateral agencies, including the Asian Development Bank have boosted financial assistance to the region, and that trend will continue. I asked Steve Pollard if he could put a figure on the substantial increase he's foreshadowing.
POLLARD: First of all I must say that that's a bit difficult to judge because it relies on things such as levels of co-financing; it relies on the eventual funding available to climate change, which can be quite substantial. So it could be even more than I'm going to suggest now. But because of our general capital increase, because of more funds available under ADF10, yes there's an increase and we're talking about roughly 300-million a year, so that's one-point-five over five years. And it could be even more but I hope attention is not paid to funding levels. What is so much more important is how are we going to use the funding, at whatever level.
