media advisory
ngos demand asian bank to stop playing
with the poor
May 3, 2005 - ISTAMBUL, TURKEY -- The day
before governors of the Asian Development
Bank (ADB) sit with their new president for
their 38th Annual Governors' Meeting,
dissenters of the institution's policies and
programs demanded that the ADB become
accountable to their "prime customers" - the
poor.
Longgena Ginting of Friends of the Earth
International said: "It is time for the Asian
Development Bank to stop playing with the
poor and to stop exploiting the environment
in the name of poverty reduction."
"The ADB has been getting away with too
much for too long," said Hemantha Withanage,
Executive Director of the NGO Forum on the
ADB. He added: "They claim that they are
reducing poverty but actually they have run
roughshod over poor people and we have had
enough of it."
According to Ozan Zeybek from the Turkish
Working Group on the ADB, "Turkey is a member
of the ADB. Our taxes finance part of the
ADB's operations which are then channeled to
private construction firms from Turkey. We do
not want our tax money to be used for
increasing the profits of Turkish companies
by exploiting communities in Asia and the
Pacific."
In an effort to raise public awareness on
the destructive impacts of neo-liberal
policies imposed by the Asian Development
Bank, Friends of the Earth International,
theTurkish Working Group on the ADB, the NGO
Forum on the ADB, and Focus on the Global
South have organized a series of alternative
events that include seminars, four fora, and
a public rally. According to the organizers
of these events, development banks like the
ADB have increasingly become instruments of
an empire made up of a network of Northern
governments, multinational corporations and
military powers, who are imposing
neo-colonialism through their exploitative
economic policies.
"The ADB pays no attention to countries'
human rights situations and supports
dictatorships as in Nepal and Central Asia,"
said Gopal Siwakoti 'Chintan', International
Convenor of NGO Forum on ADB, "and it must
stop now."
for more information contact in
istambul:
Friends of the Earth International:
Longgena Ginting: +31 6 188 46 365 or email
ginting@foei.org
The Turkish working group on the ADB:
Ozan Zeybek: +90(0)532-6784217
Levent Sensever +90(0)537-7235494
Joy Chavez: +90(0)544-8875651
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