'Business as usual' Not Good Enough for Pacific, ADB President Says

JEJU, REPUBLIC OF KOREA (16 May 2004) - Fresh and ideas are needed on development in the Pacific, as a "business as usual" approach will not produce results, ADB President Tadao Chino told a meeting of Pacific Governors of ADB.

Speaking on the eve of the ADB 37th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors at the weekend in Jeju, Mr. Chino pointed out that the Pacific region did not benefit from strong growth in the 1990s.

"As the global environment now regains its strength, it is vital that the Pacific become engaged more successfully than in the past," he said, calling poverty the most serious development issue in the Pacific.

"We urgently need to accelerate job creation for Pacific youth, and to ensure that we can provide adequate social services, especially education. To do this, economic growth in the Pacific over the next decade will need to improve substantially."

At the meeting, PDMC delegates expressed appreciation for ADB's steps to move closer to its clients in the Pacific through the establishment of new offices in Port Moresby, Suva and Sydney.

The meeting's discussion also provided feedback on the draft Pacific Strategy (2005-2009). The delegates gave broad endorsement for the two themes of private sector-based job creation and improvement in basic services delivery. It offered the cautionary note that economic growth was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for achieving poverty reduction.

The Pacific delegations also offered their congratulations to Mr. Chino for a successful conclusion of the ADF replenishment exercise. They noted that the new TA grants were particularly important for the Pacific developing countries, where ADB's policy advice and capacity building assistance were highly appreciated. The delegates endorsed the suggestion that ADB's performance in the Pacific should be measured by results on the ground and not mainly by lending volume.

The Pacific DMCs commended ADB's efforts to build stronger partnerships through meaningful participatory approaches. In their view, this would ensure full ownership by the Pacific DMCs of ADB's assistance programs, and would allow ADB and the developing countries in the Pacific to work "hand in hand."