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Opening Remarks by
Ursula Schäfer-Preuss
Vice President, Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development
Asian Development Bank

13th Poverty and Environment Partnership Meeting
9 June 2008
ADB Headquarters, Manila

Introduction

Good morning to you all.Ladies and gentlemen, Mayor Hagedorn of Puerto Princesa – we are very pleased to have you with us here today for the 13th meeting of the Poverty and Environment Partnership – this being the first time that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is hosting the meeting.

For ADB, this has been a special period. We hosted the Asia Clean Energy Forum last week, and celebrated World Environment Day on last Thursday.We have designated this as “Environment Week” here at ADB – giving us all a chance to reflect on the state of our planet and to recommit ourselves to protecting the integrity of the environment.

The emphasis is based on our clear understanding that environment and climate change represent a major development issue for Asia.While climate change is by nature an environmental issue, it is of greatest concern to all of us and has much more far reaching adverse impacts on people’s health, safety and livelihoods – with the poor being disproportionately affected.

Indeed, this Poverty and Environment Partnership brings together multilateral and bilateral development agencies as well as non-governmental and academic organizations to improve and harmonize our understanding of ideas and approaches – from urban pollution control and water management to deforestation.Today, I would like to inform all of you on some accomplishments, future tasks, and remaining challenges.

ADB’s Actions

ADB’s action on the environment is guided by our recently approved long-term strategic framework, called Strategy 2020.Along with economic and social inclusive growth and regional integration – environmentally sustainable economic growth is one of the three main strategic agendas. This reflects our recognition that the development pattern over the past several decades has not given adequate attention to the environment. This must be changed.

It is our firm conviction that a multi-faceted approach is needed to address the challenges.First, we continue to support the global dialogue – including the ongoing efforts by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.Second, we engage in various multilateral initiatives to enhance financing for climate change and protection of the environment – including the proposed Climate Investment Funds. Lastly, we provide a series of knowledge products to enhance our understanding and improve policy framework.For example, ADB, with the UK Government, is undertaking a study on the economic impact of climate change in Southeast Asia. Most importantly, these efforts will be undertaken jointly with our developing member countries – at the regional, national, and local level.

At the regional level, we are helping to address major environmental challenges such as land and forest management or coastal resources degradation and developing valuable lessons on how to structure program-level partnerships. In the Greater Mekong Subregion, our Core Environment Program is working to better integrate environmental considerations into the development of key sectors such as energy, transport and tourism. We also are supporting sustainable land and forest management through the Biodiversity Corridors Initiative, in partnership with WWF and local NGOs. The ADB-led Central Asian Countries Initiative on Land Management has brought together the five countries of that sub-region to address their land degradation and water management problems, and ADB’s investments are complemented by considerable grant financing from the Global Environment Facility. The GEF is also partnering with ADB to finance the newly formulated, six-country Coral Triangle Initiative – which includes Indonesia, Timor-Leste, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands.The Coral Triangle has been described as the “Amazon of the Sea”, and it is not only a rich biological treasure but it supports local livelihoods and generates billions of dollars in economic activity from tourism and fisheries and other related industries.

At the national level, we are leading ambitious programs like the PRC-GEF Partnership on Land Degradation in Dryland Ecosystems. We have worked very closely with the Philippines Government to enable a new energy efficiency policy which includes such measures as a national phase-out of incandescent light bulbs. ADB’s new Country Partnership Strategy for the People’s Republic of China, for example, has been hailed as an “environment strategy” because of its emphasis on investments to achieve more environmentally sustainable growth.

At the local level, we are working with municipalities, provincial authorities or lower levels or government. Projects with environmental sustainability as a theme amounted to roughly 15% of our more than roughly $17 billion invested over the past two years.We expect this to increase further in the near future. We also have created special programs to further mainstream environmental considerations in our work, such as those financed through our Poverty and Environment Fund which was recently replenished through the generous support of Norway and Sweden. This Fund has supported ADB’s Poverty and Environment Program as a catalyst for building greater attention to the interface between poverty and environment into our own operations. You will hear one such example from Mayor Hagedorn. There will be more presentations on initiatives supported by our Poverty and Environment Program during the Small Group Sessions this afternoon.

Future Challenges

Introducing a more environmentally sustainable pattern of economic growth for the future in this region will not be easy, but ADB is working closely with our Developing Member Countries to encourage policy, institutional and investment responses that can transform the way economic growth and poverty reduction are accomplished – in a sustainable way.All of us have much work to develop and implement solutions to many of the key challenges for the future, such as:

Clean urban development: with less reliance on automobiles and more on good public transport systems and pedestrian friendly cities, we aim to develop affordable transport systems and improved environmental quality for the poor.

Sustainable rural development: with better water, land and forest management as well as the infrastructure investments are needed to support productive and sustainable agricultural systems, taking into account the needs of small farmers and those living in remote areas.

Support for climate refugees: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has suggested 150 million refugees may exist by 2050. The global community needs to initiate the responses now to deal with this possible crisis.

Address rising food prices and natural disasters: as we can now see, many of the underlying causes of the current food crisis can be traced to environmental concern. Furthermore, we also understand that natural disaster risks are also exacerbated by the effects of climate change.

Once again, the above issues remind us of the close linkage between the protection of the environment and poverty reduction.As the majority of people in the Asia-Pacific region still live in rural areas, many continue to depend on the effective use of natural resources for their livelihoods.When these natural resources are damaged by environmental degradation and climate change, the basis for their livelihoods is affected and poverty reduction efforts will face increasing difficulties.This is not only a rural issue – the urban poor’s exposure to environmental pollution – air and water in particular – also has significant impacts on their health and livelihoods.

These are not easy tasks – and we certainly need your help and partnerships to determine the best ways forward. The answers to such questions lie in better understanding the complicated links between managing our economy and our environment.

Conclusions