Editorial
A warm welcome to the ADB delegates

We in Hawai'i welcome the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, getting under way this morning at the Hawai'i Convention Center.

We have many reasons to extend this welcome, not least of them is our need to make the convention center competitive and cost-effective. Landing such serious undertakings as ADB and Pacific Basin Economic Council meetings goes a long way toward establishing Honolulu as a contender.

Yes, you can get serious business accomplished in a place known for its surf and sun. And we wish the ADB finance ministers and other delegates great success this week.

None of this is to suggest that the ADB couldn't use some tweaking of its values and standards. Those who object to the policies of the ADB, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are not Luddites in the entire. While they echo often reactionary anti-globalization sentiments, they also reasonably urge these organizations to cease making loans that increase the indebtedness of poor countries, or harm farmers and the poor in the name of financial restructuring and reform, or build huge, damaging and unneeded projects to give procurement to the funding nations.

And indeed, these patrician world and regional finance organizations are conceding the need for change in many of these instances. We can't think of a better place for the ADB to undertake reform of its policies than here in Honolulu.

The tear gas and shattered glass of other venues for such meetings — Seattle, Davos, Quebec — are most unlikely here in this land of aloha. Instead of cocooning in the convention center and their hotels, we hope delegates will get to know some of the earnest folks who oppose their efforts.

We believe the two sides have much more in common than they suppose.