Many of the Asia and Pacific region's poor people live in developing member countries that have weak governance, ineffective public administration and rule of law, and civil unrest. It is a much greater struggle for affected countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and they are likely to require additional support from the international community.

ADB acknowledges the importance of staying engaged in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCAS). Modes of engagement must be tailored to the specific needs of affected countries in order to operate more effectively in such settings.

ADB's approach

ADB's approach to fragility and conflict consists of:

1. selection of aid instruments
2. focus and direction of operations
3. application of business procedures, requirements, and guidelines
4. responses to the challenges of delivering effective aid; and
5. field presence and operations supervision capacities.

A regional technical assistance project supports analytical work on weakly performing countries, the development of more flexible engagement modalities and business processes, capacity development to support country planning systems, and monitoring and evaluation.