May 5 (Bloomberg) -- George Clooney is there. So are Mariah Carey and Robert Downey Jr. There's even room for Karl Lagerfeld, Andre Agassi and Jeff Immelt. Oddly, Time magazine's list of the 100 most-influential people excludes Haruhiko Kuroda.

If you don't know who he is, you are likely to know soon enough about the man who runs the Asian Development Bank.

The point here isn't to criticize the choices, which probably mirror the mood of many U.S. readers. Time also did a commendable job highlighting many of Asia's key players, including the Dalai Lama, China's Hu Jintao, India's Sonia Gandhi, Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim, Australia's Kevin Rudd and Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou.

Yet it's hard not to lament the lack of focus on a man whose responsibilities trump those of many world leaders.

Kuroda is no glory hound. And the ADB tends to fly below the radar of global markets, attracting far less attention than the World Bank or International Monetary Fund.

No organization will play a bigger role in fostering peace and prosperity in a region on which investors and executives are depending for future profits. The widening gap between Asia's rich and poor has been a major theme in recent years. The worsening global food crisis is an even bigger challenge and makes the ADB's mission more pivotal than ever.

If there was ever a time for Asia to join hands and cooperate, it's today. Surging food and oil prices are growing threats to social stability in Asia. Remember, it was the increasing cost of living that ended Suharto's 32-year dictatorship in Indonesia in 1998.

Fiscal Deficits

Leaders from New Delhi to Manila need to be prepared for potential unrest sparked by economic upheaval. The risk is growing as the prices of crude oil, rice, corn, wheat and soybeans reach unprecedented levels.

When Rajat Nag, managing director at the ADB, says ``the era of cheap food is over,'' he's really explaining why Asian markets could be in for a bumpy few years. Wider fiscal deficits may become the norm as governments subsidize food and energy costs. That may lead to credit-rating downgrades, higher bond yields and less money for poverty reduction and education. The developing world's ability to invest in its future is in jeopardy.

Countries such as Indonesia have had public demonstrations over high prices. Here, the ADB will play a key role advising governments on how to handle the food crisis. Equally important, the ADB is there to advise governments on what not to do.

Long-Term Solutions

ADB officials say price controls or bans on food exports are not a long-term solution to rising commodity prices. A better approach is to invest more in agriculture and infrastructure to encourage farming. A shorter-term solution being pushed by the ADB is allowing Asian currencies to strengthen so that imported inflation is contained.

Also expect the ADB, which is holding its annual meeting this week in Madrid, to be a thorn in the sides of developed nations subsidizing their farmers and investing in biofuels. Both are distorting market forces.

It's all part of how policies in wealthy nations are causing side effects in poorer ones. Last month, the Group of 24 developing nations upped the ante by calling on the IMF to ``urgently improve'' its surveillance of major economies. Global losses from the U.S. mortgage crisis are one concern; agriculture subsidies in industrialized countries are a bigger one.

Critics Abound

Here, the ADB's reach and on-the-ground intelligence will be invaluable. It has 48 member governments in East, South and Central Asia -- a region that accounts for more than two-thirds of the world's poor. A more prosperous Asia is in everyone's interest, and Kuroda will be at the center of those efforts.

The ADB is hardly perfect. Some say its mission overlaps that of the World Bank. Issues facing the ADB include a row among members over its relevance. Critics say the region it was founded to transform 42 years ago has been, well, transformed.

In 2007, the Manila-based ADB approved a record $10.1 billion of loans, with China getting $1.3 billion and India receiving $1.4 billion. In April, the U.S., which with Japan is the ADB's largest shareholder, voted against the bank's long-term strategies -- an unprecedented step.

Even so, the food crisis is likely to make such concerns moot. If the ADB didn't exist, world leaders would probably be desperate to create an institution like it.

With all due respect to chief executives such as Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon who made Time's list, it's hard to see how their work at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. is more important than Kuroda's in Asia. Or how the influence of actor Brad Pitt or golfer Lorena Ochoa trumps that of spreading the growth benefits in Asia.

Kuroda is charged with nothing less than helping drag the world's most populous and economically promising region out of poverty. Talk about changing the world as we know it.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Madrid at wpesek@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 4, 2008 12:01 EDT