NGO Forum on ADB

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ADB-NGO Cooperation

Policy Highlights

The Bank’s definition of ‘NGO’ is a range of civil society organizations that include people’s organizations, community-based organizations, voluntary organizations and public interest groups. ADB’s policy on cooperation between the Bank and NGOs was initially established in 1987 and substantially broadened in 1998; the primary objective is to integrate NGO experiences, knowledge and expertise and in the process mainstream participatory development processes into ADB operations.
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2001 Creation of NGO Center

In early 2001, ADB created an “NGO Centre” to strengthen institutional capacity to deal with NGO matters. Simply, the number of staff in the headquarter s will increase its staffing. This is in fact part of the ADB’s response to a large protests organized by social movements at the Bank’s Annual Meeting held in Chiang Mai, Thailand in May 2000. It will be crucial for the Forum to monitor the process and implementation of the new unit in order to make it truly functional for the sake of stakeholders.

As a direct consequence of the huge protests by NGOs and affected communities of ADB projects at the ADB Annual Meeting in Chiang Mai in 2000, ADB President Tadao Chino formed a High Level Committee to undertake a comprehensive review of ADB’s institutional arrangements for cooperation with NGOs. This Committee directed a smaller Task Force to prepare the specific proposals.

The November 2000 Task Force Report recommended, among others, the creation of an ‘NGO Center’ and ‘NGO Cooperation Network’ to implement various modes of Bank-NGO cooperation at various levels -- institutional, policy, and country program/project levels – Strategic/Thematic institutional cooperation is aimed at sharing information, discussing thematic issues of mutual concern, and exploring directions toward more effective and mutually beneficial engagement; Operational cooperation with NGOs include (a) consultations with NGOs in country programming processes; and (b) engaging NGOs as advisors, consultants, implementing agencies, monitoring agencies and evaluators.

ADB staff feedback on Bank-NGO cooperation have been varied – ADB must engage with NGOs; NGO consultation should take place early in the project cycle; NGO cooperation must be placed in context; Staff skills must be strengthened; Networking is important; Resident mission capacity must be strengthened; Channels of communication must be improved. Engage NGOs as consultants. NGO comments have likewise been varied – Match rhetoric with reality; ADB must recognize advocacy role of NGOs; ADB should provide capacity-building for NGOs and funding for NGO initiatives; ADB must develop regular, institutionalized consultation and dialogue with NGOs.

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ADB-NGO Cooperation