1. Comments Invited on ADB’s Long-Term Strategic Framework
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has issued a consultation draft for its safeguard policy update and will hold a series of consultation workshops as part of a process of enhancing the environmental and social safeguards of ADB-assisted projects. The draft was posted on the internet for at least 90 days of public comment on 11 October 2007. Feedback received during the consultation phase will be taken into consideration in the preparation of a policy paper. For more information, contact Xiaoying Ma, Senior Environment Specialist, Environment and Social Safeguards Division (RSES), at safeguards_update@adb.org.
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2. OSPF Reports on Stakeholder Outreach
The Office of the Special Project Facilitator (OSPF) has been conducting outreach sessions to make the consultation process of the accountability mechanism more widely known. Since 2004, sessions have been held in 28 cities in 18 countries. Participants have included staff of ADB resident missions and representative offices, nongovernment organizations (NGOs), and, in the case of developing countries, personnel of executing agencies. Nearly 2,000 people have attended these sessions, including 577 NGO representatives, 592 executing agency personnel, 536 ADB staff, and 219 from other groups (e.g., beneficiaries, aid agencies). For more information, contact Robert C. May, Special Project Facilitator, at spf@adb.org.
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3. Half a Billion Dollars Committed to Renewables in Pakistan
The Government of Pakistan and ADB have agreed on a $510 million multitranche loan to support the Renewable Energy Development Sector Investment Program. Pakistan's demand for power is outstripping supply. While coal, oil, and gas are expected to meet much of the future demand, there is great scope for more environment-friendly options. The first project under the loan will finance a set of small to medium hydropower plants in Northwest Frontier Province and Punjab. For more details, contact Tianhua Luo, Energy Specialist, Central and West Asia Department, at tluo@adb.org.
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4. NGO Trains Manila Slum Dwellers on Recycling
ADB's Poverty and Environment Program (PEP) is supporting Sustainable Project Management, an independent, Switzerland-based association that is training members of Manila’s poor Smokey Mountain community to improve their waste recycling through better collection, processing, and exporting. Garbage is transformed into sorted recyclable and composts that can fetch higher prices in markets. For additional details on the project, contact Michael Lindfield, Principal Urban Development Specialist, Regional and Sustainable Development Department (RSDD). To learn more about the PEP, contact Takashi Ohmura, Environment Specialist, RSES, at tohmura@adb.org.
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5. Project Offers Protection to Those Displaced by Conflict in Nepal
The Government of Japan and ADB are supporting Nepal in its efforts to provide more protection to families and children displaced by conflicts. The $3.08 million project, Strengthening Decentralized Support for Vulnerable and Conflict-Affected Families and Children, will strengthen the legal framework and capacity of decentralized social services, and pilot child and family protection and support system in five districts of Nepal. For more information, contact Axel Weber, Social Protection Specialist, South Asia Department, at aweber@adb.org.
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6. ADB Contributes to Clean Up PRC's Songhua River Basin
The ADB-financed Songhua River Basin Water Pollution Control and Management Project will prepare a loan enabling the control of pollution in the People Republic of China's (PRC) Songhua River basin to improve the urban environment and quality of life in surrounding provinces. The Songhua River basin is the third largest in the PRC with an area of 557,000 square kilometers and a population of 62 million. The Songhua River catchment area covers mainly Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. For more information, contact Sangay Penjor, Principal Financial Analysis Specialist, East Asia Department (EARD), at spenjor@adb.org.
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7. Loan Targets Malnutrition in Indonesia
The ADB-financed Nutrition Improvement through Community Empowerment Project will reduce malnutrition among poor Indonesian children and pregnant women. ADB will provide a $50 million loan to cover most of the project’s estimated cost of $71.4 million; the Government of Indonesia will cover the balance. In addition, an ADB technical assistance grant of $500,000 will strengthen evidence-based planning and budgeting for nutrition programs at the national and local levels. For more information, contact Barbara Lochmann, Social Sector Specialist, Southeast Asia Department (SERD), at blochmann@adb.org.
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8. Initiative Raises Gender Awareness in Water Sector in Central Asia
ADB and the Central Asian Interstate Commission for Water Coordination (ICWC) have established the Gender and Water Network in the Central Asian republics to improve gender awareness among water sector stakeholders, and to strengthen their capacity to incorporate gender issues into decision-making processes. Raising awareness of gender issues is being carried out through the ICWC’s water network and the Global Water Partnership – Caucasus and Central Asia, with the active involvement of NGOs from the region.
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9. Senior Appointments Made at ADB
Xianbin Yao, Deputy Director General of ADB’s Central and West Asia Department, has replaced Shyam Bajpai as the Acting Director General of RSDD. Mr. Bajpai has become the Secretary of ADB, replacing Jeremy Hovland, who has been appointed ADB’s General Counsel. In addition, C. R. Rajendran, Advisor (Safeguards and Compliance), South Asia Department, has been appointed Secretary, Compliance Review Panel, Office of the Compliance Review Panel.
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10. ADB Review Becomes a Monthly E-zine
ADB Review has been redesigned and relaunched as a monthly electronic digest of ADB news and activities. The latest issue includes feature stories on innovative ADB-financed projects that are helping address Asia's hidden hunger and improve agricultural productivity. To subscribe, send a request to review@adb.org.
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11. East–West Center Officers Certificate Program
The Asia Pacific Leadership Program is a 5-month graduate certificate program combining the development of regional expertise with the cultivation of individual leadership capacity. Based at the East–West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, the program is open to mid-career professionals and mature graduate students with high leadership potential from government, business, NGOs, and the media across the globe. For more information, contact Monique Wedderburn at aplp@EastWestCenter.org.
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12. CSO Visitor: Sasakawa Peace Foundation
This regular feature spotlights one of the many CSOs whose representatives have recently met with ADB staff at the institution's headquarters in the Philippines.
Established as an independent nonprofit organization in Tokyo in 1986, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation aims to contribute to the community, and thus to world peace, by conducting activities fostering international understanding, exchange, and cooperation, as well as efforts to promote these activities.
The Foundation undertakes surveys and research, develops human resources, promotes staff exchanges, organizes international conferences and other fora, and conducts other activities fostering international understanding, exchange, and cooperation. It also collects, disseminates, and promotes information to carry out these and other activities necessary to accomplish the Foundation's mission.
While some aspects of the Foundation's activities have changed over time, one aspect has remained constant since its inception: the implementation of both grant projects and self-operated projects. The Foundation's comparative advantage lies in its ability to provide a variety of fora for international dialogue, and its preference for a multilateral, multidisciplinary, and participatory approach. This is reflected in the Foundation's program priorities: dialogue across cultures and civilizations, capacity building and institutionalization of the nonprofit sector, and East Asian renewal and transfer of experience.
The Foundation's program features two major components: regular projects, conducted in line with the approach described above, and “special funds projects,” targeted at specific regions. In both cases, coordinated action and joint endeavors with private nonprofit organizations are encouraged.
Among the Foundation grants approved in 2007 has been a 6.9 million Japanese yen ($59,850) contribution to the nonprofit Association of Foundations in the Philippines to carry out a 2–3 year pilot study on setting up an innovative scheme for supporting local NGOs.
On 10 October 2007, Takahiro Nanri, a program officer with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, met with NGOC staff to explore ADB experience in fostering cooperation with NGOs, and to explain the Foundation’s support to the NGO sector. For more information on the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, see www.spf.org/e/index.html.
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13. Training Courses and Workshops
A listing in this section does not imply ADB endorsement or availability of financing for participants.
- 8th Training on Making Governance Gender Responsive, 12–19 November 2007, Manila, Philippines. Contact: Center for Asia Pacific Women in Politics; e-mail: trainings@capwip.org; tel: +63 2 851 6934; website: www.capwip.org/training/mggr.htm.
- Information Systems Management for Development Organizations, 26–30 November 2007, Anand, Gujarat, India. Contact: Institute of Rural Management; e-mail: oliver@irma.ac.in; tel: +91 98 2536 7827; website: www.irma.ac.in/programmes/mdp.php.
- Rights-Based Approaches to Development, 5–7 December 2007, London, UK. Contact: INTRAC; e-mail: info@intrac.org; tel: +44 0 1865 201851; website: www.intrac.org.
- Gender Analysis and Training, 16–18 January 2008, London, UK. Contact: INTRAC; e-mail: info@intrac.org; tel: +44 0 1865 201851; website: www.intrac.org.
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