South Asian countries may miss UN poverty targets

Aug 3, 2010, 13:07 GMT

   Jakarta - Most South Asian countries may not be able to achieve the target of halving extreme poverty by 2015 under the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, a senior UN official said Tuesday.

   While there has been great progress towards achieving universal primary school enrollment, the prevalence of hunger in South Asia increased slightly between 2002 and 2007, said Sha Zukang, UN under-secretary general for economic and social affairs.

   'The sharpest reductions in poverty worldwide continue to be recorded in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia,' Zukang told an Asia-Pacific ministerial conference to review the Millennium Development Goals.

   'Most of Southern Asia, however, is in danger of not halving extreme poverty rates by 2015,' Zukang said.

   He did not give a figure for the prevalence of hunger in South Asia.

   In East Asia, the proportion of people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day dropped from 60 per cent in 1990 to just 16 per cent in 2005, while in South-East Asia, the number went from 39 per cent to 19 per cent, he said.

   The poverty rate in China is expected to fall to around 5 per cent by 2015.

   The eight Millennium Development Goals, adopted by world leaders in 2000, range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education by 2015.

   In all of Asia, the number of workers who receive inadequate earnings or work in poor working conditions with few benefits declined between 1998 and 2008, but progress has slowed or reversed since then, Zukang said.

   Indonesian Vice-President Boediono said while his country had met some of the targets, it had to work harder to reduce the maternal mortality rate and fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.

   A World Bank report released in February puts the maternal mortality rate in Indonesia at 228 deaths per 100,000 live births, one of the highest in Asia.

   Boediono called for new international schemes to help developing countries achieve the UN goals.

   'Efforts to promote development have suffered in the wake of the [global financial] crisis and commitments made by developed countries have been missed,' he said.