New ADB disclosure policy now effective

15 September 2005

Board minutes, draft country strategy and policy documents, and environmental and social monitoring reports should now be publicly available.

New disclosure rules under the recently-approved ADB Public Communications Policy are now in force. As of September 1st, the following documents, among others, should be available on the ADB website or made available to in-country stakeholders within the stated timeframe:

1. Draft Country Strategy and Programs (CSP),
2. Pre-CSP assessments such as poverty and sector analyses,
3. Board minutes and tentative Board schedule,
4. Chairman’s summaries of Board discussion,
5. Draft Policy and Strategy papers,
6. Environmental and social monitoring reports, and
7. Draft Operations Evaluation Department reports.
   

Documents can also be requested at ADB’s InfoUnit (), which is mandated to acknowledge information requests within 5 days and respond within 30 days. Citizens are encouraged to sign up under the new ADB email notification system at http://www.adb.org/Disclosure/contact.asp, in order to receive an alert when documents of interest have been posted at the ADB website.

ADB transparency still insufficient

Although the improved disclosure policy is a step in the right direction, the ADB continues to make slow progress when measured against the increasingly refined transparency agenda of critics. ADB has yet to publicly disclose the following documents:

1. Board transcripts,
2. Board documents such as Report and Recommendations of the President and R-Papers, prior to Board discussion,
3. Project concept clearance paper for private sector projects,
4. Final draft CSPs upon circulation to the Board,
5. Aide Memoirs and Project/Program Progress Reports,
6. Operational budget, and
7. Names of blacklisted companies.
   

The ADB is also being encouraged to set up an independent external appeals mechanism (instead of the current internal Public Disclosure Advisory Committee) to process refused information requests.

Additional Resources

2005 ADB Public Communications Policy, March 2005 (Acrobat pdf 473 KB)

ADB disclosure policy webpage

Bank Information Center transparency webpage

BIC’s ADB PCP Summary Table (MS Word 161 KB)