- ADB has been working with our partners to help our member countries respond to the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- ADB’s $9 billion Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility or APVAX launched in December 2020 will provide significant financing to procure and deploy safe and effective vaccines.
- ADB’s ability to convene, facilitate collaboration, and drive momentum behind the recovery effort will be essential for the region’s success.
In a pre-recorded video message, ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa introduced the 2020 Partnership Report: Responsive Partners, Resilient Communities at the virtual launch of the publication on 8 July 2021. The President thanked ADB’s partners for their contributions over the last year during times of such daunting challenges and called for more focused partner work to ensure a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery.
The annual Partnership Report showcases the work and achievements of ADB’s financing partnerships with bilateral and multilateral institutions, the private sector, and other development partners each year. The 2020 report highlights how partnerships played a critical role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes the agile and innovative actions that ADB and its partners pursued to help developing members and the region combat the pandemic, how the private sector served as a key partner from the onset of the crisis, and the kinds of projects undertaken in 2020 to respond to the crisis and ensure that the gains from the past endure and flourish.
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Transcript
It is my great pleasure to introduce ADB’s 2020 Partnership Report.
Since early 2020, ADB has been working intensely with our partners to help our developing member countries respond to the unprecedented challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
I am very pleased that ADB was able to provide bold, agile, innovative support since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. Even before the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in March 2020, we began providing various forms of assistance to our developing member countries, including grants for purchasing essential medical and protective equipment. We followed this in April 2020 with a $20 billion comprehensive response package of technical assistance, grants, and loans to governments and the private sector.
Our rapid response created a powerful platform for collaboration and mobilization of resources from ADB’s broad network of partners.
In 2020, ADB recorded its highest-ever level of cofinancing of $16.4 billion. Of this, $11.1 billion was for our sovereign operations and $5.3 billion was for nonsovereign operations. Cofinancing for our COVID-19 response accounted for two-thirds of all cofinancing, reaching $10.8 billion. We mobilized significant amounts—$7.8 billion—from partners through our new financing tool for quick budget support, the COVID-19 Pandemic Response Option or CPRO. CPRO provided additional fast-disbursing financing for our developing members as they sought to cushion the impact of the pandemic on their populations and economies.
The region’s recovery depends critically on access to safe and effective vaccines. To ensure this, ADB launched a new $9 billion initiative in December 2020, the Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility or APVAX, which is rapidly being rolled out across the region to provide significant financing, including from partners, for governments to procure and deploy safe and effective vaccines.
Looking ahead, we will need to focus our support on ensuring a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery as the pandemic recedes. This will involve support to countries so that they can pursue low-carbon development trajectories and address job losses and increased inequalities due to the pandemic, including the disproportionate impact of the crisis on women and girls.
Partnerships will be central to this effort.
ADB’s ability to convene, facilitate collaboration, and drive momentum behind the recovery effort will be essential for the region’s success.
So, I would like to thank those we have worked with over the last year during times of such daunting challenges.
I look forward to continuing to work with all of our partners as we overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and achieve a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific.
