About ADB

Strategic Development Objectives

The adoption of poverty reduction as a strategy gave primacy to ADB's fight against poverty. ADB continues to carry out activities to promote economic growth, develop human resources, improve the status of women, and protect the environment, but these strategic development objectives now serve its poverty reduction agenda. Its other key development objectives, such as law and policy reform, regional cooperation, private-sector development, and social development, also contribute significantly to this main goal.

Stakeholder's input

ADB consulted its various stakeholders—central and local governments, nongovernment organizations, the academic community, development agencies, and funding agencies—in preparing its poverty reduction strategy. Two- and three-day workshops were held for this purpose in Bangladesh, People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyz Republic, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam. Consultations were also held over the Internet.

The consultations identified lessons learned from poverty reduction efforts in each country, examined emerging strategies, and expored ways in which the new ADB strategy could best support national efforts and priorities. The key findings were summarized in the ADB publication Reducing Poverty: Major Findings and Implications.

New social policy and poverty agenda

The various consultations and other preliminary efforts at drafting ADB's poverty reduction agenda culminated in the Manila Social Forum from 9 to 12 November 1999 at ADB headquarters. At the forum, which had strong support from the World Bank, high-level representatives from around the world discussed the new social policy agenda arising from the transition from central planning to market economies and globalization in Southeast, Central, and East Asia.

Among the topics discussed at the forum were the following:

• inclusive labor markets;
• the decentralization of social services to rationalize social public expenditure;
• the role of the private sector in job creation, governance, and poverty reduction;
• the new challenge of urban poverty; and
• the building of proactive social safety nets.

The forum brought out the need to reexamine solutions that were valid before globalization in the mid-1990s. Social safety nets have to be established, and public systems built up. The state must be made increasingly responsible for transparency and good governance and for an enhanced role for stakeholders. Good governance must also be given greater emphasis by international finance institutions.

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