Focus on Trade

NUMBER 88, June 2003

IN THIS ISSUE
The Asian Development Bank held its 36th Annual Governors Meeting two days ago in Manila on June 30, 2003, without any of the usual pomp and extravagance that characterized previous AGMs. If original plans had been followed, this year's AGM would have been held in Istanbul, Turkey in May but the United States' war on Iraq highlighted security and other concerns that led to the cancellation of the Istanbul event. The ADB then decided to move the meeting to Manila and drastically abbreviate it to a one-hour business-only meeting, where attendance of all Governors (finance ministers of member countries) was not even mandatory.

The scaled-down and seemingly low key nature of this year's AGM notwithstanding, the Asian Development Bank stands as one of the more powerful and influential financial institutions in the Asia and Pacific region. It has programs and projects that span sectors from agriculture to telecommunications, from health to energy, from education to roads and ports; and policies that traverse poverty reduction, private sector development, privatization, governance, and similarly context-changing framework.

In this issue of Focus on Trade we tackle important aspects of institutional and policy governance that the Bank takes pride in purportedly protecting. The complete print version of this collection of articles will be released at the end of July. After that, copies may be downloaded from the Focus website http://www.focusweb.org. Limited numbers of hard copies may also be sent to readers upon request. For information contact Joy Chavez
<j.chavez@focusweb.org>