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The Forum on Implementation of Kazakhstan’s Development Strategy up to 2010: The Successful Experience of Asian Countries, held in Astana, Kazakhstan, was organized by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Economy and Budget Planning with support from ADB. The Forum examined economic development in other Asian countries as a learning base for implementing Kazakhstan’s Development Strategy up to 2010. Topics discussed included the state’s role in development, development of nonextraction sectors of the economy, reform and development of agriculture, human resource development, and regional economic cooperation. Find out more about ADB’s assistance to Kazakhstan ADB and Bangladesh Sign $300 Million Loan Agreements for Five Projects
The five loan projects are the Road Network Improvement and Maintenance Project, the Jamuna-Meghna River Erosion Mitigation Project, the Dhaka Clean Fuel Project, the Urban Governance and Infrastructure Improvement Project, and the Rural Infrastructure Improvement Project. New Funds for Research on Iron-Rich Rice Cultivation
The grant aims to increase the amount of iron and other micronutrients in rice through “biofortification.” Half of Asian women and preschoolers, and 60% of pregnant women, are anemic, most of them from poor families. The grant is carrying out research and human nutrition trials to increase the iron content of rice seed and investigating the cost-effectiveness of the plant breeding strategy. The Danish International Development Agency is providing $280,000 cofinancing for the original ADB grant, which is part of a $3.9 million technical assistance project to conduct plant-breeding research in five national agricultural research institutions, supported by the International Rice Research Institute and International Food Policy Research Institute. Accounting for ChangeADB, in coordination with the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants, conducted two workshops for accountancy trainers and educators from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Viet Nam. Under a regional technical assistance grant, Upgrading Accounting Education (Training the Trainers) in Selected Developing Member Countries, two 3-day workshops were held in Dhaka and Hanoi in early September 2002 for participants from academia, professional accounting bodies, and public agencies that have a significant influence on the development of national accounting curriculum. The workshops highlighted the need to understand global accounting developments, and to raise the quality of accountancy training in developing countries. They also highlighted the interdependent roles of academia, the accounting profession, and regulators and employers in formulating effective national accountancy development plans. |
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Heads of line ministries and donor organizations in Kazakhstan, and experts from the People’s Republic of China, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Turkey joined Kazakhstan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Pavlov in Astana in November 2002 in discussing Kazakhstan’s future development strategy.
ADB and the Government of Bangladesh signed in February loan agreements for five new projects totaling $300 million. The agreements were signed by ADB President Tadao Chino and Bangladesh Ambassador to the Philippines M. Munir-uz-Zaman. 
ADB has approved additional funding of $905,000 to research the cultivation of iron-rich rice to help reduce anemia among one billion of Asia’s poor. The funds, provided from the Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund of the Government of the United Kingdom, supplement a technical assistance grant of $1.3 million approved by ADB in October 2000.