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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