ADB’s Fourth Decade (1997–2006) (updated edition)

The 1997 Asian financial crisis hit the region and became a defining moment for Asia and ADB. As ADB participated in coordinated crisis responses, Asian policy-makers reassessed their economic policies in a fundamental way.

This volume presents how ADB met the challenges of designing strategies to respond to rapid changes in the region following the Asian financial crisis and changes in international development thinking. Several important policies and strategies were approved, including ADB’s Poverty Reduction Strategy as well as ADB’s first Long-Term Strategic Framework to 2015. ADB embarked on two major reorganizations (in 2002 and 2006) and committed to an internal reform agenda to be a more responsive, relevant, and results-oriented organization.

ADB through the Decades

The 5-volume publication, ADB through the Decades, provides a historical account of how ADB has evolved to respond to the dynamic changes across the Asia and Pacific region over the past 5 decades.

With the specialized report, A History of Financial Management at Asian Development Bank: Engineering Financial Innovation and Impact on an Emerging Asia, this 5-volume series serves as a companion to the ADB corporate history book to be launched in 2017. Together, these publications provide the first comprehensive corporate narrative on ADB’s history since the previous ADB history book, A Bank for Half the World, was published in 1987.