Holding on to its current practices will not serve the Asian Development Bank well in the future, according to a senior U.S. official. “It’s important for the ADB to stick to its overall mission, but at the same time it’s important for it to realize that it’s an institution that needs to be almost continuously evolving,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary for International Affairs Clay Lowery, who is representing his country at the bank’s annual meeting in Madrid. “Our view is that the ADB is doing a pretty good job and it can do an even better job going forward, but it is going to have to evolve with the times,” he told reporters. Lowery called on the agency to rethink its policies in relation to the region’s growing economies like China. “As time progresses and China becomes even wealthier, I think the ADB needs to figure out how it changes its products, how does it work in a different way with China.”
Source: US warns Asian Development Bank it risks becoming ‘irrelevant’ (AFP)
