ADB's capital reforms to unlock USD 100 billion funds for Asia, Pacific in next 10 years

Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Friday approved capital management reforms that unlock USD 100 billion in funds over the next 10 years to support Asia and the Pacific region with resources to manage a complex set of overlapping crises and climate change challenges.

The reforms were introduced through an update of ADB's Capital Adequacy Framework (CAF). They expanded the bank's annual new commitments capacity to more than USD 36 billion, an increase of approximately USD 10 billion, or about 40 per cent. "The Asian Development Bank (ADB) today approved capital management reforms that unlock USD 100 billion in new funding capacity over the next decade to address the region's overlapping, simultaneous crises," ADB said in a statement.

The updated CAF is the latest of several initiatives by ADB to increase its lending capacity.

ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa said these important reforms will significantly expand ADB's ability to support a broad range of critical development efforts across Asia and the Pacific, including greater concessional resources for our vulnerable members.

"These resources will help the region manage a complex set of overlapping crises, address gender inequality, and provide for basic needs in the context of the existential challenge of climate change. This extra lending power will be extended and leveraged further by renewed efforts to mobilize private and domestic capital and maximize the impact of our work," Asakawa said.

The ADB statement further said that the economies must also mobilise more tax revenue, modernise tax authorities through digitalization, and cooperate to ensure a fair and well-functioning international tax system.

Domestic resource mobilization is vital in the effort to address debt sustainability and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, it added.

Asia and the Pacific's poor and vulnerable are acutely exposed to escalating and interconnected crises that jeopardize their health, educational outcomes, and livelihoods. An estimated 155 million people, or 3.9 per cent of the region's population, lived in extreme poverty in 2022 and many, in particular women, face a cost-of-living crisis that has made food and other essential commodities and services unaffordable, according to ADB.