Dancing to country tunes
ADB says the big cost of implementing safeguard policies is a hindrance in its business with members like India and China. That is why it wants to use safeguard mechanism of borrower countries. India and China are pushing the bank in this direction. "There is pressure from middle-income countries on ADB for easy and quicker access to loans. It takes two years now to decide on a project due to stringent safeguard policies,' says Hemantha Withanage of NGO Forum on ADB, a Manila-based group. "In its hardsell to... India and China, ADB has started adopting borrowing countries' safeguard systems, which are nowhere near existing ADB safeguard policies in terms of parameters,' says Souporno Lahiri of People's Forum against ADB. In fact, in 2005, ADB had decided that its own policies needed to be in consonance with country policies, a dilution of its own standards.Interestingly, ADB's Operation Evaluation Department has found safeguards don't impose unreasonable costs or delays on implementation.