By Chris Lang
Tadao Chino, the Asian Development Bank’s president, cannot pretend that he does not know what NGOs want from his Bank. During the Bank’s 2001 Annual General Meeting in Hawai’i, he left the convention centre to accept a petition from NGOs. No doubt he hoped to accept the petition, smile for the cameras and return to his lunch as quickly as possible. But, when he shook hands with Dawan Chantarahassadi, a villager from Klongdan in Thailand where a notorious ADB-funded wastewater plant was under construction, she kept hold of Chino’s arm, and did not let him go until Walden Bello had finished reading out the entire statement.
