ADB: Weak governance, corruption stunt development

As Asian countries make their trek towards greater prosperity, the region’s top development agency stressed the importance of governance reforms, which should complement economic policies to ensure sustainable growth.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a statement that weak governance still hounded most Asian countries, resulting in income inequality and environmental degradation, among other problems, that threaten the region’s sustained development.

Successive ADB surveys taken in client countries ranked corruption and poor governance as Asia’s top threats to development progress, ahead of poor infrastructure and environmental degradation. “The region’s governance performance is not in line with its economic performance,” says the study.

Asia leads the world in economic growth and poverty reduction, but ranks low among the regions of the world in global measures of governance.

These findings were contained in the ADB’s just-released evaluation of various lending activities by the agency. The report said the region’s rapid economic growth was not matched by improved governance—a contradiction that could no longer continue as countries increasingly find that the pace and the quality of growth depended on better governance.