The board of directors of Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a new 'Access to Information Policy (AIP)' that aims to maintain the lender’s high standards of transparency.
The AIP, which will come into effect on January 1, 2019, will replace the current Public Communications Policy (PCP).
ADB Vice-President for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development Bambang Susantono said, "Transparency and openness are key to maximising the development impact of our work."
He said, "We want to make sure that ADB continues to be a top performer in terms of transparency. Principles-based access to information policies are now considered to be international best practice."
The new policy retains the key information disclosure and sharing principles and exceptions of the PCP, and includes a new overarching principle of "clear, timely, and appropriate disclosure" that is underpinned by a presumption in favor of disclosure and a commitment to sharing information and ideas, ADB said on Monday.
The bank has expanded some areas of disclosure. For example, the types of information that will be made available after 20 years will now include historical country financial information and certain external audit reports on ADB-administered trust funds.
The Manila-based bank was ranked first in the 2018 Aid Transparency Index, an independent measurement of aid transparency, created by Publish What You Fund, a UK-based nongovernment organisation. The index assessed 45 of the world's leading development organisations.
Asia's dynamic economic growth over recent decades has brought different challenges, ranging from environmental stress to rapid urbanization, reports UNB.
ADB's activities and the issues ADB addresses are changing. Accordingly, disclosure and information-sharing practices have to evolve to ensure that stakeholders, including civil society, get information in a timely and appropriate way.
Details on what documents ADB will routinely disclose and how they will be disclosed will be found in the policy's implementation arrangements on the ADB website.
These implementation arrangements will also detail the process of requesting information from ADB.