[Kabar-indonesia] ADB unlcear when it can return to Dili

[Joyo at aol.com]

Australian Broadcasting Corporation - ABC 
June 30, 2006
-transcript-

TIMOR: ADB unlcear when it can return to Dili

The Asian Development Bank is one of the many agencies
whose activities have been suspended because of the
political crisis. And its unclear when the ADB will be
able to return. The Bank's Vice President, Larry
Greenwood, is a former senior U-S diplomat, with
experience in reconstruction programs in Iraq, Haiti
and Pakistan. He speaks about pulling back in East
Timor for now.

Presenter/Interviewer: Karon Snowdon

Speakers: Larry Greenwood, Vice President of the Asian
Development Bank

GREENWOOD: We aren't working our programs now because
in fact the government essentially is not functioning
and therefore it's been a problem for us and we're
very anxious that the political situation gets sorted
out as quickly as possible and stability returns, so
that we can move back very quickly to resume and may
be even increase our programs.

SNOWDON: How might you, when you do go back have to
adjust your programs and given the current situation
which is quite disruptive of course and will remain so
for sometime, even once the political crisis is over,
I would think. But the bank's report on East Timor
late last year, indicated that in some of the priority
areas like water and sanitation projects, the targets
hadn't been met, the projects were only partially
successful, so is your job going to be even harder and
are you going to have to reassess what you do and how
you do it in East Timor?

GREENWOOD: I think we will continue to pursue the same
priorities, transport, water sanitation and
micro-financing are the three priorities. I think we
basically have to continue to work very closely with
the government, to help build their capacity. So I
think if anything, I think the only assessment we need
to make is one on the timing of how quickly we can
complete the projects. They are going to take
obviously longer and we need to be more patient and we
need to focus may be a bit more on building government
capacity.

SNOWDON: And how much do you think that this current
crisis has set back East Timor's past of development?
It's a very poor country anyway.

GREENWOOD: It's hard to say at this stage. I think
when your in the middle of a political crisis like
this, particularly one that is violent it's easy to
exaggerate what the overall long term macro-economic
impact would be. I think clearly there's going to be a
long term impact in terms of ability to attract
outside investment and to get private sector going. I
think in terms of the overall macro situation, if the
political situation can get stabilised relatively
soon, that in fact you may not see a major change in
terms of the macro situation.

For example, in the Solomons, our view is that in fact
the economy itself will continue to grow pretty much
on the same trajectory, despite the rights in April.

SNOWDON: Looking more broadly at Asia and given your
background in security and transnational issues,
what's your view of the current situation as regard
say terrorism and security Asia wide and the impact on
the regions economic development?

GREENWOOD: Now I'm speaking beyond the can of a vice
president of the Asian Development Bank, but may be
related to the work that we do. Obviously terrorism
and political instability is a constraint on growth.
It's not only a distraction, but since it requires
resources to deal with, it's a problem. It also gets
in the way of private sector development, because it
scares off private investors.

Having said that I think the region actually is
dealing with terrorism actually very effectively.
Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia all have been very
robust and as well as I think that the region as a
whole is working to try to improve the security of
trade as well, increasing port security. And I can
make one of the point is that it makes it even more
important that we are successful in what we do, that
is we, the Asian Development Bank. Our objective is to
reduce poverty, to promoting growth. It's going to be
very important to do that in key areas, such as
Indonesia, such as southern Philippines, where there
is this instability. We need to be able to spread the
benefits of economic growth and economic integration
to all parts of the economies, that's one way of
making it more difficult to for terrorists to do their
evil.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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