The needs of Asia's poor are being overlooked, UN report warns
By Nick Cumming-Bruce International Herald Tribune
TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2005
BANGKOK Amid the growing international clamor for action on poverty in
Africa by leaders of the world's richest nations at the Group of 8 summit
meeting this week in Scotland, a UN report made public in a number of capitals,
including Bangkok, seeks to draw attention to the plight of Asia's poor.
They are being neglected, the report says, because the dynamism and
success of countries like China and India, which boast the world's highest
rates of economic growth, are obscuring the problems of the 14 Asia and Pacific
countries that rank among the poorest of the world's poor.
Asia and the Pacific contain two-thirds of the world's 700 million
poorest people, but the region receives less than half of the aid that goes to
the world's poorest nations, the report says. "The world's attention needs to
be refocused on them" to counter their growing marginalization in the global
development debate, it says.
"Africa deserves all the attention it can get, but Asia, with the bulk of
the world's poor, also deserves the attention it needs," said Minh Pham, head
of the UN Development Program's regional office for Asia and the Pacific, which
produced the report.
"We are a generation that could wipe out poverty. It's not a question of
money: It's a question of political will," Pham said. Neglect of Asia's needs,
however, could result in "widening inequalities and growing disaffection, which
could lead to conflicts within and outside the region," the report warns.
The report was prepared as "a timely reminder" of Asia's needs before a
summit meeting at the UN in September to take stock of progress in implementing
the poverty reduction goals set in the 2000 Millennium Declaration. It calls
for tripling aid to the least developed Asian and Pacific countries, from $4
billion in 2002 to $12 billion next year, with an increase to $26 billion by
2015.
"Asia has a track record of pulling itself out of poverty," said Pham,
citing Singapore's rise to developed-country status in little more than a
generation. "We are not asking for assistance in the long term; we are asking
for a little push to lift these countries to the next rung of the ladder."
The Asia-Pacific region's 14 least developed nations, ranging from
Afghanistan and Bangladesh to tiny Pacific islands like Tuvalu, live on less
than a quarter the average income of the rest of the region and they are
chronically short of the savings and investment needed to finance their
development.
Aid to these countries has grown in recent years but at a much slower
rate than aid to the world's other poorest nations and the grant component in
that aid has fallen.
Moreover, many of the region's poorest countries identify infrastructure
as a crucial component of their battle to reduce poverty.
Yet overseas development assistance for this sector has fallen sharply in
recent years.
The granting of "quota-free" and "duty-free" schemes for all dutiable
goods originating from least developed countries "would contribute enormously
to raising export earnings and make trade work for development," the report
says.
Poor Asia-Pacific countries are also in effect being penalized for their
success in pursuing prudent policies that have helped to keep their foreign
debts and the costs of servicing them lower than those of other poor nations.
None of the region's poor countries is eligible for relief under the
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative.
Yet they will need "significant" debt cancellation if they are to achieve
their Millennium Development Goals for halving poverty by 2015, the report
says.
Apart from financial aid, Asia's poor countries need to be given the
opportunity to trade their way out of poverty, the report says.
Countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal are highly dependent on
exports of garments yet duties on clothing exports imposed by the United
States, their biggest export market, were triple the bilateral aid they
received.
Least developed Asian-Pacific countries are also economically vulnerable
as a result of their tiny populations or isolation.
The only one of the 14 to reach the point of graduating from least
developed country status was the Maldives, largely on the back of tourism, said
Pham, "and, boom, the tsunami wiped it out."
Development aid, however, is not a one-way street, the report says. Under
their commitments to the Millennium Declaration, Asian and Pacific countries
also need to demonstrate their willingness to deliver better governance,
tackling issues such as corruption to be assured of continued donor support.
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