Asia Struggling To End Poverty Despite Rapid Economic Growth: Study
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More than 660 million people in Asia still live in extreme poverty despite the region’s recent economic gains, revealed a new study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday, highlighting the need for Asian states to make growth more inclusive.
More than 660 million people in Asia still live in extreme poverty despite the region’s recent economic gains, revealed a new study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Thursday, highlighting the need for Asian states to make growth more inclusive.
The new study, entitled Ending Asian Deprivations, warned that poverty and other forms of deprivation were threatening the sustainability of Asia’s growth and integration, while most Asian countries were unlikely to meet their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 – as they grapple with lack of basic sanitation, a big number of underweight children and high infant and maternal mortality incidence.
“As the deadline for the MDGs looms in 2015, this study provides a timely reminder of the vast unfinished business in the region and the steps needed to end deprivation across the board,” said Kazu Sakai, director general of ADB’s Strategy and Policy Department, in a statement.
[quote]“Asia’s future prosperity will only be assured if countries continue the fight against poverty and other areas of deprivation, and this will require proactive state intervention,” Sakai added.[/quote]Related: World Bank Chief Targets Poverty-Free World By 2030
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The study, conducted jointly with the National University of Singapore and compiled with contributions from 23 Asian development experts, found that while GDP growth on its own was reducing income poverty, it played a much smaller role in reducing other deprivations, like education and health outcomes. This spike in inequality is likely to impact future economic growth through slower poverty reduction and employment generation, the study said.
Additionally, when taking into account the highly vulnerable population, who can easily revert back to extreme poverty, the number of Asians that may wind up in extreme poverty in the future could rise to as high as 1.5 billion people – or nearly one in every two Asians.
[quote]”This calls into question the current development paradigm based on a focus on maximising growth, if such development leaves so many of Asia’s citizens in dire poverty and hunger,” the study said.[/quote]Related: Breaking the Inter-Generational Poverty Curse: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Related: Poverty Decreases Sharply in Developing World: UN
The ADB called for new approaches to make growth more inclusive and to promote more effective state action in areas such as skills development, delivery of quality education, and incentives for entrepreneurs.
These measures must be carried out in conjunction with institutional improvements and stepped-up partnerships with the private sector and civil society, the study said.
Policymakers will also need to do a lot more to create conditions for more small-and-medium enterprises – a key jobs generator – to flourish, and to reduce the informal sector through actions like improved property rights and access to finance, it added.
Calling for closer regional cooperation, the ADB also estimated that cross border connectivity between Asian countries could deliver benefits equivalent to about $13 trillion for developing Asia in the decade up to 2020 and beyond.
A reasonable time frame for ending deprivations in Asia would then be 2025, a decade after the MDGs have come to an end.
