Social Impacts

Asia shows ‘impressive’ drop in poverty, but inequality rises: U.N.
July 2007, by Kyodo News
(Ref: http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070701/kyodo/d8q423gg2)

Asia has made impressive strides in reducing its rates of extreme poverty on the heels of rapid economic growth, but it is also facing rising inequalities within countries, according to an annual U.N. report. “Eastern and South-Eastern Asia in particular, experienced impressive reductions in poverty,” the 36-page Millennium Development Goals Report 2007 said, defining poverty as living on an income of less than a dollar a day.

The greatest gains were reported in Eastern Asia, where the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped from 33 percent in 1990 to 9.9 percent in 2004.

In Southeast Asia, the percentage was down to 6.8 percent in 2004 from 20.8 percent in 1990.

Southern Asia, which includes India, the figure went from 41.1 percent in 1990 to 29.5 percent rate in 2004. The “accelerating growth” in India also put Southern Asia on track to achieving the first of the eight Millennium Development goals, which sets out to halve extreme poverty by 2015, the report said.

The report tracks progress on commitments made by nations around the world in 2000 when they set out to implement the eight Millennium Development Goals. In addition to the first goal, the targets are making strides toward achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal heath; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development.

Accompanying the positive trend in reducing poverty, however, is the rapidly rising inequality within countries. Eastern Asia had the most dramatic rise in income inequality — the share of income of the poorest quintile of the population declined from 7.1 percent in 1990 to 4.5 percent in 2004.

“Widening income inequality is of particular concern in Eastern Asia, where the share of consumption among the poorest people declined dramatically during this (1994-2004) period,” the report said.

It also pointed out that the greatest inequality rates are found in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the poorest account for only about 3 percent of national consumption.

Data in the report also show that Asia’s path to the millennium goals may be obstructed by challenges in other areas, such as health, environmental sustainability and gender equality.

Asia is also lagging in the area of gender equality with a large number of women shut out of jobs, and they continue to receive poor health care, according to the report.

In Southern Asia, the participation of women in paid, non-agricultural jobs rose from 13 percent to 18 percent from 1990-2005. This was the lowest percentage of women working for wages, aside from farm labor, in the world.

In politics and government, the report found that gains were modest with the share of women in Southern Asia serving in parliaments going from 6 percent in 1990 to 13 percent in 2007. Southeastern Asia saw a 7 percent rise in that same time period while Eastern Asia actually witnessed a drop of 1 percent from 19 percent in the same time span.

Also of note is the concern about the rate of loss of forests, which has been the fastest in some of the world’s most biologically diverse areas, including South-Eastern Asia, Oceania, Latin American and Sub-Saharan Africa and which also contributes to increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

In South-Eastern Asia and Northern Africa such emissions more than doubled between 1990 and 2004.

Beyond Asia, however, progress towards the development targets has been mixed and at the halfway point officials believe that achievements can be made.

“The results presented in this report suggest that there have been some gains and that success is still possible in most parts of the world,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said in the foreword to the report. “But they also point out how much remains to be done.”

The U.N. chief also pointed to the failure of most developed countries to live up to their prior commitments to provide financing within the global partnership for development.

Only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have reached or exceeded the U.N. target of providing 0.7 percent of their gross national income to development aid.

“It is imperative that all stakeholders meet, in their entirety, the commitments already made,” Ban said.