Greg Rushford writes in the Far Eastern Economic Review that ADB, perhaps, is now close to achieving its goals.

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The Asian Development Bank is getting close to accomplishing its mission.

Established in 1966 to fight regional poverty, the bank has dispensed more than $130 billion in loans over its four decade history. It now has some 2,400 international civil servants in its Manila headquarters and 26 field offices from Afghanistan to Vietnam. In March 2007, a panel of "eminent persons" reported to ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda that the goal is in sight: "By 2020 we envision a dramatically transformed Asia." The wise men predicted an Asia which "will have conquered widespread absolute poverty" for more than 90% of its people who will live in "middle income" countries.

So is the ambitious ADB-which doled out some $10 billion last year, a 37% increase from 2006, intending to declare looming victory and begin to wind itself down? Hardly. Rather, it is busy attempting what all bureaucracies do when their original missions are near completion: reinventing itself and expanding. Last month at the development bank's 41st annual meetings in Madrid, the board of governors of the 67 member countries voted to launch "Strategy 2020." Instead of providing cheap financing to build traditional public infrastructure like electricity, roads and irrigation systems, the new strategy will focus on financing private-sector development and operations. By 2020, loans to support private investments, now about 25% of the bank's annual portfolio, will double. The ADB'S capitalization that supports the lending, now at $56 billion, could also double.

The United States, the ADB's second largest donor country after Japan, tends to defer to Tokyo (while the Japanese accept the Americans' lead in the Washington, D.C.-based World Bank). But in Madrid, the U.S. flatly refused to vote for Strategy 2020, the only one of the ADB's 67 member countries to do so. While there were gripes that, with Washington, it's too often "my way or the highway," the U.S. was not isolated. Switzerland abstained from signing, as did the United Kingdom. Even representatives of governments such as Australia and India that took the pledge expressed concerns over exactly where the money is supposed to come from. And some poor countries, notably Cambodia, that want to stay on the dole reluctantly voted for the new strategy, while openly expressing fears that big countries such as India and China could suck up ADB money at their expense.

Nobody could be found who was eager to voice philosophical objections to the ADB's minimizing private risk with guaranteed public monies, at least to inquiring reporters.

Meanwhile, Mr. Supachai and other advocates of the ADB'S new strategy deny that it will divert attention from helping Asia's truly poor, whether they live in infamous basket cases like Cambodia and Bangladesh, or rapidly growing China and India. The Strategy 2020 report soberly declares that "poverty" remains Asia's "central challenge." There remain 600 million Asian poor who live on less than $1 dollar a day, a statistic that is "about double the population of the United States," the document notes. The report adds that "one of every two individuals in the region-or 1.7 billion people-remains poor, as measured against the $2-a-day benchmark."

The liveliest criticisms of the new strategy that were expressed in Madrid last month came from various regional pressure groups that are hardly known for having a promarket bias. Australian trade union activist David Carey declared at a May 5 press conference that the ADB should not be using "public taxpayers' funds to underwrite private profits in ADB-funded projects." Mr. Carey is affiliated with Public Services International, a global network of public-sector unions that reports it has members in 163 countries; the private profits he decried were those of European, American and Japanese multinationals that bid for ADB-financed projects.

For old Asia hands, the criticisms from Manila-based activists of involving the private sector in promoting economic growth seemed as off-kilter as they were sadly familiar. Four decades ago when the ADB began operations, the Philippines was Asia's second richest country, after Japan. Now, think of the long list of economies that have left, or are rapidly leaving, the Philippines behind: Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, China, India. Who doubts that Vietnam is soon to follow? One can debate the proper role of the ADB in encouraging the growth of free markets, but that begs the question of why the Philippines remains poverty-stricken.

And the defenders of the ADB's intended new direction might ponder more deeply whether the needs of Asia's remaining poor are better served by funneling public money to boost capital markets that thrive on their own.

Mr. Rushford is editor of The Rushford Report, an online publication that tracks the politics of international trade and development.