'Two Faces of Asia' Test Future of Development Bank (1/2)

The Asian Development Bank was created in 1966, 2 years after the African Development Bank. Today both of them are talking about needed reforms to better serve their member countries. Last month we looked at the issues in Africa where there is still widespread need for development aid.

The situation is different for the Asia-Pacific area. The Asian Development Bank was created to raise money from rich industrial nations for loans to support economic growth. Now there are surpluses in Asia, and less and less need for those loans.

Rajat Nag is managing director general of the bank; we called him in Manila. He says the bank is debating how to deal with the two faces of Asia. Economic growth in many countries has been great -- ten percent a year in China, for example. The bank's members have about 2 trillion dollars in savings that could be invested. Yet more than 600 million people in Asia are still without clean water.