The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has a regional office based in Washington DC that operates as a channel of communication with its North American shareholders, the US and Canadian Governments. The office also helps in policy coordination with other institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, Inter-American Development Bank, and NGOs and think-tanks based in Washington DC.
Though both the USA and Canada have Executive Directors that sit on the Board of the ADB at the Head Office in Manila, the Philippines, the ADB Management also communicates with them through the Washington DC office. One part of the office's work is contact with the media and outreach. "The biggest challenge is in getting air time for development issues relating to Asia." Karti explained, "Asia doesn't seem to get much attention here. Of course 9/11 has had a huge impact, and African development issues are center stage in development thinking. Asia is regarded as a success because of China, India, Taiwan, Korea etc, and there is the idea that it may be capable of looking after itself, so it does not get much coverage. Our challenge is to remind people that although India and China are doing well, Asia has two-thirds of the world's poor, about 850 million (out of 1.2 billion) who live on under 1 dollar a day. If the world is to achieve the aims of the Millennium Development Goals, it will need to address Asian development".
An Indian national by birth, Karti graduated from Madras University with a law degree. After working within the Indian government for a number of years, he moved to working within the ADB in 1986. "I am from a developing country and though I started my career in the diplomatic service in India, I found that working in embassies didn't interest me. I wanted to work in areas that had a real impact on people's lives". He told us, "I moved to the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Finance but it was still just policy making. Then in 1986 I started working with the ADB. I have had a satisfying career with them". The legal training came in useful in working with the organization. "When I joined the ADB, I noticed that the thinking at the time was that that if one helps governments to get their economic policy framework right, development would follow smoothly. It took some time to realize that though this was necessary, more was needed. Policies had to be enforced properly. Rule of law is needed to get foreign investment. I started working on this, and governance issues generally. In 1995 I published the first ADB good governance paper. Then, in 1999, I wrote the ADB's poverty reduction strategy, which featured governance - along with economic growth and social development - as a principal component".
Karti is due to retire in January 2004, and declares that his first few months will be spent on relaxing and working on his golf handicap. "Once I get past the first stage of relaxing and getting used to not working, I am sure I will want to get back involved in development, probably as a consultant in the areas in which I have been working, in poverty reduction strategies and governance". He told us, adding, "I plan to divide my time in India and the US. The amount of time I spend in each country will depend very much on where the consultancy opportunities lead me".
