1. First Stakeholder Consultations Held on Safeguards Policy Update
ADB has completed the first three in a series of consultative workshops being held on the update of ADB’s safeguard policies (on involuntary resettlement, indigenous peoples, and the environment). The Central and West Asia Consultation, Indigenous Peoples Consultation, and Philippines Consultation were held during the month of November. They will be followed by meetings with government, private sector, civil society and other stakeholders in South Asia and the Pacific during the second half of January 2008.
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2. ADB President Calls for Fundamental Change in Water Management
In an address made on 4 December before the first Asia-Pacific Water Summit in Beppu, Japan, ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda called on countries in the Asia and Pacific region to make a fundamental change in the way they manage water to build a sustainable future. He stated that solutions to the region’s water challenges include reliable, accessible data on water; strong partnerships among governments, the private sector, civil society and others; water quality management; and capacity building for new skills, approaches, and new mindsets.
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3. Independent Report Gives ADB High Marks for Accountability
The 2007 Global Accountability Report, published by the One World Trust, recognizes ADB as a high performer on four dimensions of accountability: transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response mechanisms. ADB was ranked second out of 30 assessed organizations, including other inter-governmental organizations, leading multinational corporations, and major international NGOs. One World Trust promotes education and research into the changes required within global organizations to eradicate poverty, injustice and war. It conducts research on practical ways to make global organizations more responsive to the people they affect.
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4. Training Programs Create new Livelihood Opportunities in Nepal
Sahara Nepal and other partner NGOs of Nepal’s Rural Microfinance Development Center contributed to implementation of a technical assistance project creating livelihood opportunities for persons residing along roads being upgraded with ADB funding. The NGOs provided skills training for income-generating activities to hundreds of persons, and enrolled women in a microfinance scheme.
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5. Conference Explores Legal Empowerment of Women and Disadvantaged Groups
Government and civil society representatives from Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan, and international legal experts, participated in a conference, 13-14 December, to mark the completion of a regional technical assistance project promoting the adoption of legal empowerment components in ADB loans. For more information, contact Francesco Tornieri, Social Development Specialist, Regional and Sustainable Development Department, at ftornieri@adb.org.
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6. Technical Assistance Promotes Sound Environmental Management
A newly approved ADB technical assistance project, Mainstreaming Environment for Poverty Reduction, aims to accelerate the incorporation of environmental considerations into ADB’s assistance programs, and encourage expanded environmental interventions in developing countries. The project will support analytical studies, pilot interventions, capacity building, and knowledge management. The technical assistance is financed through a $2.85 million grant from the multi-donor Poverty and Environment Fund.
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7. ADB Launches Toolkit Addressing HIV/AIDS in Transport Sector
ADB marked the commemoration of the 20th World AIDS Day 2007 with the launch of a new guide for decision makers and staff working with the transport sector. The guide, HIV/AIDS and the Transport Sector, focuses on HIV/AIDS issues related to the development of roads. The toolkit recognizes that while transport sector projects are powerful instruments for economic growth, they also attract a migrant population during construction and facilitate people’s mobility, both linked to the spread of HIV.
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8. INTRAC Publishes Guide to Capacity Building
INTRAC has published Capacity Building for NGOs: Making it Work, by Rick James and John Hailey. The book is for those interested in capacity building with CSOs. It analyses some of the cultural and contextual constraints that undermine the ability to implement appropriate and effective capacity building interventions. Copies may be purchased for £12.95 through the website below.
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9. CSO Visitor: Conservation International
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.
Conservation International (CI) is a United States-based nonprofit organization with the mission to conserve the Earth's living heritage (global biodiversity), and to demonstrate that human societies are able to live harmoniously with nature. CI works in more than 45 countries where it applies its three core strategic elements: science, partnerships, and human welfare.
In Asia and the Pacific, CI maintains offices in Australia, Cambodia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Fiji Islands, Indonesia, Japan, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, and Viet Nam. The organization’s global annual budget is around $145 million. CI priorities include biodiversity hotspots, high-biodiversity wilderness areas, and globally important marine areas.
Within these areas, CI ensures that its conservation work focuses on species at the greatest risk of extinction, and on the sites and biodiversity corridors that are most important for their protection. Together with the World Bank, the Government of Japan, Global Environment Fund, and the MacArthur Foundation, CI set up a global fund called Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund for the support of CSOs.
CI also engages key constituencies in sustainable economic development by using biodiversity conservation to generate revenue for local communities and governments. The organization also engages with development banks to seek more sustainable ways of selecting sites for major investments such as infrastructure development. CI’s goal is to promote investments that deliver development more effectively with less biological disturbance.
On 13 November, Romeo B. Truno, CI-Philippines Country Executive Director, and Lilian Spijkerman, CI Senior Director for Public Funding, met with staff of RSDD and regional departments to explore possible ADB-CI collaboration. For more information on CI, see www.conservation.org.
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10. Training Courses
A listing in this section does not imply ADB endorsement or availability of financing for participants. All courses take place in 2008.
- Gender Analysis and Planning, 16–18 January, London, UK. Contact: INTRAC; e-mail: info@intrac.org; tel: +44 0 1865 201851; website: www.intrac.org/training.php?id=86.
- Advanced Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation, 28 January-1 February, Oxford, UK. Contact: INTRAC; e-mail: info@intrac.org; tel: +44 0 1865 201851; website: www.intrac.org/training.php?id=87.
- Understanding EIA: From Screening to Decision Making, 25-29 February, New Delhi, India. Contact: Sujit Kumar Singh, CSE; e-mail: sujit@cseindia.org; tel: +91 11 29955124/125, extension 281; website: www.cseindia.org/aagc/eia.htm.
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