• Facebook
• Twitter
• More

Description

The long-term strategic framework, Strategy 2020, of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has three pillars, of which inclusive growth is one. However, unlike for environmental sustainability and regional cooperation, the inclusive growth pillar does not have targets or indicators to measure ADB's contribution. Furthermore, the concept of inclusive growth is only vaguely described, and there are no guidelines as to how it can be made operational, nor contributions being measured in the context of ADB's results framework for Strategy 2020.

The Poverty Reduction, Gender and Social Development Division in ADB's Regional and Sustainable Development Department therefore launched a knowledge project on how to operationalize inclusive growth. The project developed conceptual clarity on inclusive growth, and provided methodologies--at country and sector levels--to operationalize inclusive growth and measure ADB's contribution to it. The consultant team has clarified what inclusive growth is about and concluded that (i) inclusive growth is a meaningful strategic concept; (ii) inclusive growth can be useful to try to measure the contribution of policies, programs, and projects to inclusive growth to further strengthen ADB's ability to achieve the goals of Strategy 2020; and (iii) the project assessment approach for inclusive growth contribution adopted in this project can help identify project elements and components that, if revised or added, could further enhance the inclusive growth contribution of a project.

This paper uses the conceptual framework of the consultant team and demonstrates how inclusive growth contributions by ADB can be measured and quantified in transport and energy infrastructure projects. The paper also tests the proposed methodology in 18 investment project examples (sovereign loans and grants, as well as nonsovereign private sector operations), and thus reveals strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

Contents

• About This Paper 
• Executive Summary 
• Conceptual Setting for Inclusive Growth
• Inclusive Growth: Only One of Three Strategy 2020 Pillars
• Operationalizing an Inclusive Growth Rating at Project Level
• Project Selection Criteria for Inclusive Growth Relevance Assessment
• Criteria and Weights for Inclusive Growth Relevance Assessment
• Calculating the Inclusive Growth Contribution of a Project
• The Contribution of Transport Sector Projects to Inclusive Growth
• Road Development (Highways and Expressways)
• Rural (Roads) Development
• Waterways and Domestic Shipping
• Urban Transport
• Railway Development
• Overall Rating of Sampled Transport Projects
• The Contribution of Energy Sector Projects to Inclusive Growth
• Renewable Energy Projects
• Transmission and Distribution Projects
• Conventional Power Generation Projects
• Other Energy Projects
• Overall Rating of Sampled Energy Projects