The Asian Development Bank's environment program: challenges and directions

The Asia-Pacific region is one of the fastest growing global regions, as well as the most populous. The Developing Member Countries (DMCs) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are diverse in culture, language, religion, resource endowments, and historical experience. They are also at different stages in the development ladder, from the least developed, such as Nepal, to upper middle income, such as the Republic of Korea. The DMCs include the two most populous countries of the world, China, and India, with populations of well over a billion each, as well as countries with populations of a few thousand, such as the small island states in the Pacific. The range of development challenges the region faces are similarly diverse and, given its limited resources, the ADB can assist the DMCs with only a subset of those challenges. This chapter looks at the scale of the problem, the evolution of the ADB’s understanding, resources deployed, and opportunities, all with respect to a dominant development challenge of the region - that of environmental protection and conservation.