The Asian Development Bank and Environmental Diplomacy: Limits to the Technocratic Consensus

Morten Bøås

Abstract

        We continue our look at economic considerations in international environmental cooperation in Chapter 5. Morten Boas discusses the role of international financial institutions, namely the Asian Development Bank (ADB), in Pacific Asian environmental diplomacy since the early 1980s. Boas evaluates the ADB's performance in this context, analyzing its strategies when dealing with states for whom environmental protection was not the main priority. In the process, he makes several policy recommendations for governments (donors and borrowers) and other stakeholders involved in the ADB's policy debates on environmental issues. He pays particular attention to the ADB's attempt to depoliticize the environmental agenda by defining it in a technical and functional (non-political) fashion. He finds that this strategy constituted a fruitful starting point for the incorporation of environmental issues into East Asian policy debates because, by depoliticizing the agenda, the ADB helped achieve a re-examination of purpose within the established framework of knowledge. However, environmental issues are by nature a matter of politics. This means that there are strict limitations to what can be achieved by a "technocratic consensus." Many East Asian states openly questioned the weight put on environmental issues in the ADB. One important implication for international environmental cooperation in Pacific Asia is therefore that if the ADB moves too far towards a holistic developmental agenda constituted by highly politicized crosscutting issues, it will seriously annoy important constituents, such as China. Likewise, if it completely retreats to become a narrow project-lending institution, it will risk a reduction in future cash flows due to increased criticism from nongovernmental organizations, which in turn will be followed by criticism and threats of reduced funding from donor states. This means that future environmental cooperation in Pacific Asia centered on the ADB must strive to uphold a delicate balance between the positions of the recipients of its aid and the extra-regional donor states.

　

        In seeking to provide policy recommendations related to this conundrum, Boas's chapter first underlines the limitations of a "technocratic" approach to environmental issues. He acknowledges the initial success of such an approach, whereby "environmentalists" in the ADB pushed their agenda. This suggests that, for actors who seek to introduce environmental issues into decisions of international financial institutions working in Pacific Asia, a deliberate technocratic approach is a good starting point. However, as Boas's discussion also reveals, this can only be the first stage of a much broader process during which deliberate preparedness to deal with the political dimensions of these issues also occurs. The main fault with the process in the ADB was precisely that the political dimension was suppressed for such a long time. This meant that the problems and challenges for the ADB became much larger than they would have if political issues had been dealt with much earlier. As such, Boas argues that the main implication for international environmental cooperation in Pacific Asia is the need for a balanced approach to environmental issues, both in the ADB and in the region at large. There is little doubt that most Pacific Asian states should do more to protect the environment, but likewise there is also little doubt that several of the arguments and concerns about the transformation of the ADB raised by developing states are also valid. Thus, the conclusion of Chapter 6 is that avoiding a regional backlash on environmental questions in the context of the ADB requires a balanced approach by the bank and its donors. What is more, such an approach, and its associated reforms, should be followed by firm financial commitments from donors to fund the ADB's environmental programs.