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Questions posed on the economic viability of development
The Island
|May 08, 2025
As the Asian Development Bank (ADB) revises its influential Safeguard Policy Statement (SPS), activists and economists alike are raising a critical question: Can development be economically viable if it ignores human rights and environmental stability? One such person is environmentalist Hemantha Withanage.

Speaking exclusively from Milan to The Island Financial Review, Withanage said that the ADB's new safeguards, currently under final review, aim to modernize protections for communities and ecosystems affected by its USD 20+ billion annual lending portfolio. But civil society groups argue that without stronger guardrails, the economic fallout from poorly designed projects could far outweigh their intended benefits.
"We cannot separate economics from ecology, he says.
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