Catalog

Regional Cooperation and Integration
Updated: 1 September 2006

ADB adopted a strategy to guide its work with developing Asian nations on regional cooperation and integration (RCI) on 25 July 2006. The strategy is designed to support ADB’s overarching goal of poverty reduction through regional collective actions that lead to greater physical connectivity; expansion of trade and investment; development of financial systems and macroeconomic and financial stability; and improved environmental, health, and social conditions. The RCI strategy aims to build and deepen integration in four interrelated pillars:

1. regional and subregional programs on cross-border infrastructure and related software
2. trade and investment
3. money and finance
4. regional public goods such as prevention of communicable diseases and environmental degradation.

The strategy lays out the options and means of achieving the objectives and goals established in the Regional Cooperation Policy (RCP, 1994), Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS, 1999), Private Sector Development Strategy (PSDS, 2000), Long-Term Strategy Framework (LTSF, 2001), ADB’s commitment to Millennium Development Goals, (MDG, 2002), and Medium-Term Strategy II (MTS II, 2006).

ADB can play four distinct roles in supporting and promoting RCI:

1. as money bank by providing financial resources for RCI projects, programs, and related technical assistance and helping developing countries mobilize additional funding and technical assistance
2. as knowledge bank by creating, consolidating, and disseminating knowledge and information on RCI
3. as capacity builder by helping countries and regional or subregional bodies build institutional capacity to manage RCI
4. as honest broker by serving as catalyst and coordinator of RCI for developing nations.

Read the summary on ADB's work in Regional Cooperation and Integration [ PDF ] .

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Contents

I. Background and Objective

• Emerging Trends in Regional Cooperation and Integration in Asia and the Pacific
• Regional Cooperation and Integration: A Perspective from Asia and the Pacific
• Regional Cooperation and Integration: An Integrated, Poverty-Free, Prosperous, and Peaceful Asia and the Pacific
• ADB’s Support for Regional Cooperation and Integration: A Stocktaking
• Importance of a New Regional Cooperation and Integration Strategy
• Regional Cooperation and Integration and Poverty Reduction

II. ADB's Regional Cooperation and Integration Strategy; Four Interrelated Pillars

• Pillar 1: Regional and Subregional Economic Cooperation Programs (Cross-Border Infrastructure and Related Software)
• Pillar 2: Trade and Investment Cooperation and Integration
• Pillar 3: Monetary and Financial Cooperation and Integration
• Pillar 4: Cooperation in Regional Public Goods

III. Operational and Resource Implications

• Operational Implications
• Resource Implications
• Results Framework

IV. Conclusion