OPINION> Commentary
Uneven progress on poverty
By Ajay Chhibber (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-25 08:04

Today, at the midpoint toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), world leaders will gather in New York to see where more can be done to reach them by their deadline of 2015.

This is a critical moment as the prospects of a slowing global economy, high food and fuel prices and climate change threaten to derail and even reverse the progress already made.

Advances made toward the MDGs across the world have been varied. As the secretary-general's annual MDG report indicated this year, while significant gains were made on some fronts, the overall performance has been mixed. In particular, the benefits of growth have been unequally shared both across and within countries. This is particularly true for the Asia-Pacific region.

Asia's record of progress on the MDGs remains impressive although uneven. The remarkable growth figures from Asia, driven primarily by China and India, have no doubt helped lift millions out of poverty. Vietnam has surpassed the MDG poverty reduction goals of halving the number of people living below the poverty line and is planning to go even further beyond them by another 40 percent by 2010. Bangladesh is well on track with poverty down to 40 percent in 2005.

But in the recent months rising food and fuel prices have reversed some of these gains. East Asia is generally on track and South Asia is behind but is making progress on many goals. But looking at individual countries progress across the MDGs are disparate, with health and environmental sustainability being the slowest areas for progress.

One of the striking features of the growth story in the Asia-Pacific region is the increasing gap between countries - while the larger, rapidly growing economies like China and India have advanced by leaps and bounds, there is a widening gap between the faster growing economies and those being left behind -particularly the least-developed countries, landlocked nations and the small island developing states. Here countries are mostly off-track when it comes to meeting the MDGs.

Within well-performing countries too, particular regions and groups are falling behind. Rapid economic growth in these prospering countries has not automatically translated into tangible improvements for the majority of people, or directly improved the lot of those at the lowest rungs of society.

Inequalities are increasing dramatically, especially in the fast growing economies. This is painfully evident when we note that the indicators for maternal mortality have barely improved across the region, despite remarkable progress on economic indicators.

This is primarily because the benefits of Asia's growth have remained largely concentrated to its urban centers. Rural populations, who still comprise the majority of the region's people, have typically been bypassed.

Moreover, these dramatic growth rates have not been accompanied by commensurate increases in employment opportunities or in investments for human development - crucial opportunities that the region can no longer afford to miss.

Conditional cash transfers, which were pioneered and tried with some success in Latin America, can provide much needed focus on specific MDGs especially those related to education and health. Schemes in which mothers are provided cash incentives to ensure that their children - especially girls - go to school or to ensure that children are inoculated can make a major difference in reaching the MDGs.

Asian countries, with some exceptions, have not used such schemes as widely as in other regions where they have been shown to work especially well in rural areas.

At the UN Development Program, we have seen and helped drive some progress in this region, even in countries that are landlocked and emerging from conflict.

Operating in one of the most challenging security environments in the world and assisted by the UN and other development partners, Afghanistan has rolled out a basic package of health services covering nearly 85 percent of the population, which is reported to have led to a 26 percent drop in under-5 mortality and a 23 percent reduction in infant mortality between 2002 and 2006.

Bhutan, working closely with the UN and other agencies, has already reached the goal of halving the number of people without access to adequate drinking water and sanitation. But as a group more support is needed for these countries, especially landlocked nations, to help them benefit from broader Asian prosperity.

With the current volatility in global markets, the growing crisis of rising food and fuel prices, and the risks posed by climate change, it is the more vulnerable across all countries in the region that are going to be at risk of sudden downturns.

This is going to be one of the largest challenges from now until 2015. In a region where natural disasters and conflict have often inflicted substantial reversals to previous achievements, no gains can be taken for granted.

So while Asia has much to celebrate, there is also much to do. With increasing global pressure threatening to slow things down, now more than ever the important dialogue that is to take place today, must be converted into our most precious international currency - action.

The message is simple: the goals are achievable, but it will take concerted, creative and decisive action from the global community. That is precisely what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is asking for at this high-level meeting from world leaders, to share their concrete plans and next steps to deliver on these commitments.

The author is assistant secretary-general, assistant administrator of the United Nations Development Program and director of the UNDP's Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific

(China Daily 09/25/2008 page9)