The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will boost lending to the region's poorest nations by more than $10 billion over two years, warning Saturday that the global economic crisis is jeopardizing the U.N.'s goal to halve poverty by 2020. The announcement comes just days after the bank's 67 member countries approved a tripling of the bank's capital to $165 billion, expanding the lender's ability to finance infrastructure and other projects aimed at reducing poverty in partnership with the private sector, Associated Press reported. On Saturday, the bank's president, Haruhiko Kuroda, told an annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia, that loans for Asia's developing nations will rise to $32 billion over 2009 and 2010 from $22 billion in the previous two years. The lending will «assist faltering economies and most importantly, protect the poor from the worst impacts of the crisis,» he said. It includes a $3 billion fund that the hardest-hit governments can tap to boost their own fiscal stimulus spending as they battle the downturn.
