Has ADB done enough to solve global problems?

Nearly six decades ago, about 100,000 civilians and military personnel perished as the Vietnam War escalated, the human spaceflight program Project Gemini was completed and the world witnessed the birth of the automated teller machine.

- LOUISE MAUREEN SIMEON

Now, the longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict has worsened, climate change has pushed the global emergency button, while computers and robots are feared to soon replace humankind.

From 1966 until 2024, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has witnessed a myriad of both problems and developments, released billions of dollars worth of loans and grants to developing economies and continued to envision an Asia-Pacific region that is inclusive, sustainable and resilient.

In the 1960s, ADB's focus was on food production and rural development. Such priorities remain the same today and a whole lot more.

A few weeks ago, The STAR joined the ADB Developing Member Country Journalists Program for the 57th ADB Annual Meeting in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia, whose cobblestone streets and graffiti-filled walls boast of its rich art and its long, colorful history that goes all the way back to the time of the lost empires.

The four-day meeting gathered government officials from almost 70 countries, development partners, private sector and civil society organizations (CSOs) to assess current and future financial and economic conditions and their impact on the world, especially on vulnerable states.

I was told that ADB's annual meet is usually unexciting - predictable even-as leaders discuss and try to come up with solutions to problems that were already there many years ago, but now piled up and worsened, such as climate change, food insecurity, inequality and poverty, among others.

But it was not the case this year as the over 2,000 participants witnessed consecutive days and nights of protests by hundreds of Georgians, triggered by the controversial foreign influence bill patterned after a Russian law, which could undermine Georgia's aspirations to join the European Union. The annual meet coincided with the approval of the bill on second reading earlier that week.