Anti-ADB bodies readying to protest

Setting a parallel agenda targeting the Asian Development Bank and its funding philosophy coinciding with its four-day annual general meeting here tomorrow, several organisations under the banner of 'Peoples' Forum Against ADB' are getting ready to hold debates and protest meetings to question the legitimacy of the multi lateral agency.

Besides questioning the 'development model' and efficacy of the projects being promoted by the bank, the organisations and groups have also been raising the basic issues of concern for all the developing countries such as lack of transparency, corruption and accountability.

The most vocal of them are those from the smaller nations like Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Indonesia where the ADB lending is very substantial when compared to the size of their economies.

For them, many of the projects funded by ADB are a total failure and according to Shalmali Guttal of Focus, Bangladesh, it is promoting an indefinite poverty in these nations in the name of development.

While Shalmali sees net transfer of resources from these nations on account of failed projects, Ildy Nacpil of Jubilee South, Philippines, maintains that the idea that the so-called poor nations require capital from external agencies for the development is a false notion created by these lending agencies for their selfish goals.

Reminding that the Asian Development Bank's capital resources have not only been raised from among the Asian countries but also coming in substantial quantities from the US and Europe, she terms the bank's real intention as profiteering and promotion of free market-based capitalist economy at the cost of public sector built by public money in the developing world.

The fiercest of all the allegations being levelled against the lending agency by these groups is that ADB, using the impunity clauses, is undermining all democratic and legal systems in borrowing countries, thus promoting corruption and wastage of resources under various heads.

They also point out that the bank's refusal to third party audit of the projects funded by it amounts to double-standards with no transparency in either awarding the contracts or the evaluation of projects.

Though ADB talks about eliminating corruption, its projects themselves are a source of corruption, they say. While Lidy Nacpil demands for cancellation of the entire ADB debt and its pulling out from Asia, relatively moderate voices like Ashraf- Ul-Tutu of Bangladesh wants a proper governance of ADB before going for alternative institutions and economic systems.

The events planned by the 93-organisation Forum Against ADB, which would be formally inaugurated tomorrow by these groups, include seminars on privatisation-led power and water sector reforms, environmental, social and livelihood impact of ADB-funded projects, militarisation besides a host of protest rallies and meetings. Forum leaders are also expected to present a charter of demands to the ADB president tomorrow.