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Growing Greener
ADB Review [ August 2005 ]

ADB’s role at the 2004 World Conservation Forum signals its resolve to work more closely with development partners to promote conservation activities

By Eric Van Zant, (evanzant@adb.org)
Consultant Writer

A “grow now, clean up later” approach to development is simply not sustainable. Economic growth in Asia and the Pacific must continue, but political will must shift to address the environmental consequences—sustainable growth is key to a poverty-free region.

With that strong message, then Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Tadao Chino underscored a strong ADB presence at the 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress in Bangkok in November 2004. In his keynote speech to the closing plenary session, President Chino stressed the importance of conserving biodiversity while helping poor countries develop.

ADB played a major role in sponsoring and participating in Health, Poverty, and Conservation , one of the forum’s four major themes.

ADB Vice-President Geert van der Linden, who participated with ministers from 15 Asian and Pacific countries in the High Level Ministerial Roundtable on Ecosystem Services, was one of 17 ADB management and staff members who attended the forum.

At the Congress, ADB signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with The World Conservation Union (IUCN) to formalize cooperation at the institutional level. The MOU highlights the scope for ADB to work more closely with governments, the private sector, the development community, and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) to address environmental issues. The MOU will help establish a basis for cooperation between ADB and IUCN with considerable mutual interest as international organizations (see Sharing Strengths).

The Congress

IUCN was established in 1948 as an independent scientific organization that seeks to influence, encourage, and assist societies throughout the world to conserve the integrity and diversity of nature, and to ensure that any use of natural resources is equitable and ecologically sustainable.

“ We moved from the dialogue of the deaf to a collaboration with entrepreneurs and business: this shows that biodiversity and sustainability are as important to business as they are to us "

- Joshua Bishop
IUCN Senior Advisor

Members of IUCN—which has the status of an international organization—are drawn from nation states, government agencies, and NGOs. The IUCN Congress meets every 4 years, forming the general assembly of its members. It convened in November 2004 under the overall theme People and Nature—Only One World, drawing about 6,000 participants. The World Conservation Congress brings together governments, civil society, and the private sector to discuss regional and global conservation and development issues.

ADB senior management participated in several high-level meetings with ministers from Asian and Pacific countries. ADB staff presentations addressed the four major themes, with a particularly strong role in the Health, Poverty, and Conservation theme. The other themes included: Ecosystem Management—Bridging Sustainability and Productivity; Biodiversity Loss and Species Extinction; and Markets, Business, and the Environment.

The forum showed an unprecedented level of business sector participation. “We moved from the dialogue of the deaf to collaboration with entrepreneurs and business: this shows that biodiversity and sustainability are as important to business as they are to us,” said IUCN Senior Advisor Joshua Bishop.

Peter King, an advisor in ADB’s Regional and Sustainable Development Department, stressed that the private sector must play a key role, in partnership with government, civil society, and other stakeholders, to ensure that development in the region is sustainable. ADB’s publication Asian Environment Outlook 2005 explores how corporations can improve their environmental performance and accountability, and suggests new business opportunities as the region moves toward a more sustainable pattern of growth.

A strong contingent from the Mekong Department, led by Director General Rajat Nag, was kept busy responding to the great interest among the forum participants in the many environment and poverty reduction programs in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). C.R. Rajendran, Advisor to the Director General of the South Asia Department, participated with ministers and senior officials from the GMS countries in the roundtable on Using Water, Caring for the Environment, Challenges for the Mekong Region.

ADB’s support for the Health, Poverty, and Conservation theme is part of the ADBIUCN collaboration on a structured learning exercise examining the links between health, poverty, and conservation.

Among the many ADB activities, ADB’s Robert Dobias of the Regional and Sustainable Development Department chaired an ADB-sponsored workshop to explore preliminary findings of a joint ADB-IUCN study, which draws on case studies from South Asia and Southeast Asia. The Health, Poverty, and Conservation study is funded through the ADB regional technical assistance project, the Poverty and Environment Program.

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