What is the Full form of ADB?

The full form of ADB is the Asian Development Bank. ADB is a regional development bank, its goal is to achieve a stable, healthy, versatile and sustainable Asia And the Pacific while at the same time supporting and strengthening its efforts to reduce enormous poverty.

In Asia and the Pacific, ADB was founded to reduce poverty and foster economic growth, development and mutual support. It promotes social and economic growth and development in participating countries by providing loans, grants and technical support. It comprises of 67 members, including 48 from the Asia-Pacific region.

A brief history of ADB

• In the early 1960s, the idea of the ADB was established. Subsequently, a decision on installing the ADB was agreed at the 1963 First Ministerial Conference on Asian Economic Cooperation.
• On 19 December 1966 ADB was established with a 31-member committee and Takeshi Watanabe became the very first president. In the early stages, ADB had been paying attention to food processing and agricultural growth.
• The Asian Development Fund was established in 1974 to lend money accessible to the weakest member nations at low interest.
• The first field office in Bangladesh was established in 1982 to get closer to the people who need it most.
• In mid of 1997, during the region’s financial crisis, it started projects to enhance the banking industry, i.e. approving the Republic of Korea’s single most significant loan worth $4 billion annually.
• In 2004, it invested over $800 million on the rehabilitation of Tsunami-hit areas in India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia.
• In 2008, a new global policy structure ‘Strategy 2020’ was launched to function in response to the region’s growing needs.
• A mid-term systematic review of the Strategy 2020 was published in 2014, and several operational improvements were initiated to improve company processes and become stronger and better.

ADB Priority Areas

The fields to which ADB operations offer significance are as follows

• Environment
• Regional integration
• Infrastructure
• Finance Sector development
• Education.