POVERTY ELIVIATION

ADB has dedicated itself to a clear and single-minded vision: an Asia and Pacific region free of poverty. All of ADB’s other goals and strategic objectives should contribute to poverty reduction. The Poverty Reduction Strategy sets out the ways in which ADB proposes to pursue this vision.

* Many were bypassed by the growth and transformation that happened in many of the region’s economies
* Economic crises have pitched into poverty thousands who were previously making gains
* Nearly one in four Asians today is poor, surviving on less than $1 per day

The key elements of ADB’s Poverty Reduction Strategy:

* robust, sustained, pro-poor economic growth
* social development, including human development and improvement in the status of women
* better governance

water economics

Economics offers powerful decision and management tools that help to:

* Measure the costs and benefits from water and sanitation investments and policies;
* Assess demand for water and wastewater services and evaluate their relationship to price, income, and other variables;
* Inform decisions regarding the use and targeting of public subsidies, and how to reform tariffs and improve utility finances;
* Evaluate sanitation alternatives and their tradeoffs (choosing, for example, between on-site and off-site systems);
* Assess the costs and benefits of water demand management options, including pricing, leakage reduction, and metering;
* Evaluate the desirability and feasibility of intra- or inter-sectoral water reallocation;
* Assess the efficiency of various modes of service provision (e.g. public vs. private, centralized vs. decentralized);
* Design regulatory and legal frameworks for private sector participation; and
* Evaluate the impact of project or reform on the different actors and stakeholders and devise ways to strengthen institutional frameworks.

Municipal Sewage Regulation

The Municipal Sewage Regulation shall apply to all discharges of domestic sewage.

The Municipal Sewage Regulation may be developed by the ministry of Transportation, Environement and Water to provide clear and effective requirements for (soon to be local governments) and private utilites (soon to be) sewage dischargers in order to protect public health and the environment. Compliance with the regulation would provide authorization (with minimum standards and requirements) for the treatment, reuse and discharge of domestic sewage, wastewater or municipal liquid waste.

The Ministry of Environment may review and potentially revise the Municipal Sewage Regulation. The review process may follows a policy of "continuous improvement" and the ministry's commitment to review the regulation on a regular basis and revise its provisions as appropriate.