Asian Development Bank’s President Asakawa acknowledges CSOs
MANILA – Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Masatsugu Asakawa said with the limitations brought by COVID-19, civil society organizations (CSOs) have maintained relations with the bank in its operations and policy work for the past 12 months.
Speaking before Civil Society Organizations partners at the 54th Annual Meeting, President Asakawa said they engages CSOs to reduce the impact of COLVID-19 by way of demand-driven community-let interventions to help the poor and vulnerable.
He said this is the second time the Annual Meeting is held virtually due to the COVID=19 pandemic.
“Funded through a US$2 million grant from the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, the project supports five CSO consortia in Armenia, Cook Islands, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia and the Philippines to expand their ongoing COVID-19 interventions on community-based crisis mitigation, social protection programs, and livelihood support for communities affected be the pandemic,” President Asakawa said.
He added the ADB is helping member countries produce safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines and deliver them efficiently and equitably through their US$9 billion new financing facility called APVAX (Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility) they launched last December 2020. He explained this is parallel with their efforts, and expects CSOs that work as good health service providers at grassroots level in many developing countries, CSOs will play an important role to ensure that safe and effective vaccines will be delivered to the most poor, marginalized and vulnerable populations.
“CSOs can also play an important role monitoring role to ensure accountability and help control any misuse of funding,” he added.
President Asakawa said CSOs actively participated in ADB policy reviews as reviews of their Safeguards Policy Statement, the Energy Policy, and the Disaster and Emergency Assistance Policy are still going on.
President Asakawa said he remains optimistic CSOs will continue to share their rich development experiences and expertise with peers and partners during the three-day event. (Melo M. Acuña)
ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa. (ADB File Photo)
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