Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the Asian Development Bank’s COVID-19 response focusing on social sector support and health care in general and through a case study of the Bank’s pre- and post-COVID-19 lending to its major borrower, India.

Paper long abstract:

The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) response to the COVID-19 pandemic was shaped by path dependency in both its development discourse and lending practices. In its first decades, the Bank was said to be a pragmatic lender, focused on infrastructure. By the first decade of the 2000s, the Bank’s mission changed to poverty reduction and gender equality, but its lending program continued to focus on infrastructure lending. However, this was no longer done primarily through sovereign lending to states but rather through lending for privatisation and public-private partnerships as well as direct private sector lending shaped by neoclassical economics discourse. This research investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted ADB’s development thinking, in particular, its approach to its core supposed mission of poverty reduction and gender equity. We also examine the Bank’s COVID-19 response focusing on social sector support and health care in general and though a case study of the Bank’s pre- and post-COVID-19 lending to its major borrower, India. This political economy analysis highlights the extent to which neoclassical economic dogma continued to permeate every aspect and sector of Bank work, despite the new challenges arising from the pandemic.