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Asian Development Bank

Supporting provision of regional public goods in the Asia and Pacific region

What the ADB can do for global public goods provision in the Asia Pacific region

Authors: S. P. Bajpai; D. Sharan; R. Agarwala
Publisher: Asian Development Bank , 2007

Full text of document

Regional public goods (RPGs) form a key pillar to the Regional Cooperation and Integration strategy in the Asia and Pacific region by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The strategy aims to help manage global imbalances, help lagging regions, reduce carbon intensity and check the spread of disease in the Asia. The key RPG areas in the strategy discussed in the paper are:

  • clean energy and energy efficiency
  • environment
  • natural disaster response
  • communicable diseases
  • governance
  • human and drug trafficking.

The RCI strategy identifies four distinct roles of ADB to support and promote RCI:

  • ADB as a money bank to reduce the funding deficit for many RPGs
  • ADB as a knowledge bank for assessing regional technical assistance and making it more effective
  • ADB as a capacity builder providing training for national authorities who are the principal players in public goods provisions
  • ADB as an honest broker acting to catalyse and coordinate the process.