Asia on track to cut number of poor by 2015 as part of UN millennium goals
China has made the biggest headway, with one in three Chinese living in poverty in 1990, compared to one in 10 today.
By Agencies |
MANILA: The number of people living in extreme poverty in the Asia-Pacific region is likely to be cut in half by 2015, but progress in other development goals is uneven, experts said in a review report on Monday.
The region home to 60 per cent of the world's population had over 1 billion people living on less than $1 (euro0.70) day in 1990, but that number has now dropped to 641 million, according to the latest estimates in a joint report by the Asian Development Bank and UN agencies.
China has made the biggest headway, with one in three Chinese living in poverty in 1990, compared to one in 10 today, the report said.
But other countries were lagging behind, among them the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the report showed. Among the region's 55 developing countries, only half had made their data available, the report said.
The region also is on course to attain universal education and achieve gender parity in schools by the target year 2015, set at a summit of global leaders in 2000 with the aim of alleviating poverty, disease and hunger around the world.
The biggest failures lie in reducing child mortality, improving nutrition and maternal health, and providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, the report said.
The region accounts for about 65 percent of the world's underweight children and still has 60 deaths per 1,000 births nearly double that of Latin America and the Caribbean. Three hundred mothers die per 100,000 births more than 30 per cent higher than in Latin America, the report said.
Across the region, more than 560 million people in rural areas lack access to water, it said.
``Most of the developing countries can point to success is some of the goals, but none is on course to achieve all of them,'' the report said.
The region home to 60 per cent of the world's population had over 1 billion people living on less than $1 (euro0.70) day in 1990, but that number has now dropped to 641 million, according to the latest estimates in a joint report by the Asian Development Bank and UN agencies.
China has made the biggest headway, with one in three Chinese living in poverty in 1990, compared to one in 10 today, the report said.
But other countries were lagging behind, among them the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the report showed. Among the region's 55 developing countries, only half had made their data available, the report said.
The region also is on course to attain universal education and achieve gender parity in schools by the target year 2015, set at a summit of global leaders in 2000 with the aim of alleviating poverty, disease and hunger around the world.
The biggest failures lie in reducing child mortality, improving nutrition and maternal health, and providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, the report said.
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The region accounts for about 65 percent of the world's underweight children and still has 60 deaths per 1,000 births nearly double that of Latin America and the Caribbean. Three hundred mothers die per 100,000 births more than 30 per cent higher than in Latin America, the report said.
Across the region, more than 560 million people in rural areas lack access to water, it said.
``Most of the developing countries can point to success is some of the goals, but none is on course to achieve all of them,'' the report said.
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