ISLAMABAD, Dec 19: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Friday said the findings of a US NGO were “harsh conclusions” based on a small sample of 49 reports of the Operations Evaluation Department (OED) of the bank.

After the proceedings of a seminar were published in a section of the press, the ADB, in its reply to the Environmental Defense report, said: “It is true that the report draws upon ADB’s own words.”

However, the bank responded that the report did so in a selective, biased manner as to undermine its far reaching conclusions.

The NGO in its research report noted that the ADB’s “partly successful” category appears to be a euphemism for “largely unsuccessful” or “troubled” while the bank’s “unsuccessful” project category meant “abysmal failure.”

Explaining the term “partly successful,” the ADB said for projects rated “partly successful” the bank’s evaluation anticipated a significant shortfall in achieving the purpose and goals and might consider full sustainability unlikely.

However, the bank said: “Some components would achieve major benefits, for example, equivalent to at least half the level originally expected.”

Questioning the sole criterion of “sustainability” used by the NGO as a measure of development success in its report, the bank said: “ADB agrees that sustainability is very important, but shares the widely held view that more than a single criterion is required to capture the multi-dimensional nature of success.”

Listing a number of steps taken by the ADB to improve its project performance, the bank said it had improved the strategic planning framework, introduced performance based allocation of its concessional loan funds and adopted a comprehensive project performance system.

The ADB further said in instances where individuals felt that they had been harmed by an ADB assisted project, they could file a complaint with the bank’s inspection function for an independent hearing of their concerns.