IN a statement on April 22, Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Masato Kanda announced his intention to stand for reelection as president of the Manila-based multilateral development bank (MDB) after his current term ends on Nov. 23, 2026. The representatives of the bank’s 69 member-nations would do well to keep Kanda in his position for several compelling reasons.
ADB presidents are nominated from the bank’s regional members, of which there are 50, including the Philippines, for a five-year term and are elected by the ADB board of governors, which represents all 69 of the bank’s members.
The first reason is continuity. Kanda was elected president in November 2024 to serve out the remaining term of his predecessor Masatsugu Asakawa, who had announced his retirement. Kanda assumed his post in February 2025, meaning that by the time the scheduled election arrives, he will have only served for about 21 months. In an institution such as the ADB, that is barely enough time to fully establish long-term organizational goals or culture. An extended period of transition would not only hinder the bank’s efficiency and effectiveness; but would also negatively impact its country member-clients. Kanda is a known quantity, so to speak, and retaining him would avoid uncertainty.
This is a critical concern in a period when the world is grappling with significant geopolitical and economic difficulties. At the same time, development assistance budgets have been scaled back by many of the world’s traditional foreign aid stalwarts. The US, of course, has attracted the most attention in this regard due to the savage cuts made by Donald Trump’s government, but other countries have been pulling back as well, and actually began to do so even before Trump was elected.
The second and more important reason to keep Kanda on board is that, despite having spent a large portion of his tenure at the ADB so far as “the new guy,” and following in the footsteps of the extremely popular and effective “President Masa,” the bank under Kanda’s leadership has performed in outstanding fashion while other development finance institutions have struggled to maintain their momentum. In 2025, the ADB committed $29.3 billion in support from its own resources, a 20-percent increase from 2024, and secured an additional $14.7 billion in partnership funding for a total of $44 billion in development financing.
The ADB also launched several major initiatives during the past year, including $10 billion for the Asean Power Grid, which included the establishment of a Regional Connectivity Fund. ADB also announced $10 billion in support for the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (Carec) program, and deployed $14 billion of its medium-term $40-billion food systems transformation initiative. The ADB also announced “comprehensive support” for the Philippines’ 2026 Asean chairmanship, although few details have been disclosed so far.
In addition to responding quickly under Kanda’s direction to various disaster and emergency response needs in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, the ADB was also the first MDB to announce a support package for the Middle East war, just days after the outbreak of the conflict on Feb. 28. The Philippines was one of the first countries to seek budgetary support assistance under the emergency package, which will help to offset the massive subsidies being rolled out by the government for vulnerable sectors.
The ‘human touch’
Other reforms carried out under Kanda’s leadership included the first amendment to the ADB charter in the bank’s 60-year history, allowing a 50-percent expansion in its operations, an updated energy policy, and a new environmental and social framework. The ADB also recently signed an unprecedented agreement with the World Bank Group called the full mutual reliance framework, which allows both institutions to streamline co-financed sovereign projects by relying on each other’s administrative and oversight systems and reducing duplication of labor.
Finally, the character and presence of Kanda himself is a strong endorsement for his continuing leadership of the ADB. Former president Asakawa was, for a veteran Japanese technocrat, an extraordinarily unpretentious and affable person, which was a major factor in his effectiveness, particularly in guiding the ADB through the difficult Covid-19 pandemic period. There were misgivings that “human touch” would be lost when Kanda took the helm, but that has not been the case. He is, of course, a different personality than his predecessor, but has been no less energetic in interacting with country partners, beneficiaries and officials worldwide.
