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PSI attends the 50th ADB Annual Meeting in Yokohama

05 May 2017
PSI is attending the 50th Asian Development Bank (ADB) Annual Meeting taking place from 4-7 May in Pacifico Convention Center in Yokohama, Japan. PSI delegation, headed by Asia Pacific Regional Executive Committee Co-chairs Annie Enriquez Geron and Atsushi Kawamoto, met ADB's President Takehiko Nakao during the dialogue session with Civil Society Organisations.

Kawamoto spoke on behalf of trade unions on the following issues: privatisation and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), violations of Core Labour Standards and policy direction of the ADB. Geron, joined Kawamoto on emphasizing the negative effects of PPPs.

ADB President, Takehiko Nakao, responding to the issues raised by Kawamoto, said that Core Labour Standards will be included in the final document of the ADB Strategy 2030. He also agreed that PPPs have many negative implications especially for public sector workers.

Other participants included: PSI Asia-Pacific Regional Secretary, Lakshmi Vaidhiyanathan, General Secretary of NOFS, Kjartan Lund, International Secretary of Kommunal, Anders Jonsson, CPSU Victoria Branch Secretary/Federal Secretary, Karen Batt, PSI East-Asia sub-regional secretary, Hiroo Aoba and PSI Southeast Asia sub-regional secretary, Ian Mariano. PSI-JC members also attended the meeting.

At the Civil Society Panel “50 Years of ADB Safeguards: Civil Society Perspectives on ADB's Environmental and Social Safeguard Delivery” organised by the NGO Forum on ADB, PSI's panellist Karen Batt from CPSU delivered a powerful speech highlighting the impacts of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) on public sector workers, people and communities. She also insisted on the need for strict implementation and monitoring of Core Labour Standards in all ADB projects. 50 years is more than enough!