Why South Asia remains 'most impoverished nation'
Thursday, 6 December 2007
Shahiduzzaman Khan
There are more than one billion people living in South Asia today. But the annual per capita expenditure on priority areas for human resource development like basic education, primary health care, family planning, safe drinking water, and nutritional programmes is low in this region -- just $3.0 in Pakistan and $2.0 in Bangladesh.
To put this in perspective one might compare the situation in other Asian nations such as Malaysia ($123) and Korea ($133). These Asian economies have increased investment in human development as a key strategy of economic growth. The policy makers in South Asia are yet to draw lesson from this. As a result, all countries in South Asia (except Sri Lanka) fall into the category of Low Human Development.
This message has, again, been served by the Human Development Report, 2006 in South Asia that was released this week.
A number of the country's noted economists, while taking part in discussions at the launching ceremony of the report in Dhaka, said South Asia remains the 'most impoverished region' in the world in terms of income as well as human development indicators, such as health and education.
And Bangladesh is far ahead of its South Asian nations in some social indicators. While South Asia's share in the world population is 22 per cent, it contains more than 40 per cent of the world's poor. An estimated 437 million people live below US$1.0 a day, while three-fourths of the population survives below $2.0 a day.
The economists observed that Bangladesh achieved some 'fragmented' victories in areas like higher primary school enrollment, increase in female education and reduction in diarrhoeal deaths. But the reversal is decline in quality of services. So, the challenge facing Bangladesh is to take these fragmented victories to the holistic level, ensuring quality.
The Human Development Report, 2006 has sought to explore why poverty still continues to exist in such a magnitude in a region that is doing fairly well in economic growth. The exclusive focus of the report is the impact of economic policies on poverty to assess whether the rising economic growth in South Asia has been making any difference to the incidence of poverty in the region, and to examine the impact of the numerous poverty alleviation programmes that the governments in the region are implementing.
Poor human development outcomes are the result of both supply and demand-side constraints. Many children in the region, particularly girls, do not have access to primary and secondary schools, while the quality of education remains an issue for those in school. Limited coverage and varying service quality are also of concern in the health sector. In addition many poor families lack the resources to send their children to school or to ensure that all family members receive adequate health care when needed, with resources also being compromised by adverse shocks to income. The lack of information about the (long-term) benefits of education and good health may also act as deterrents to human capital investments among the poor and vulnerable.
The levels of human development, though improved since the 1960s, have started to stagnate or even decline. Most South Asian countries failed to maintain a balance between economic and social development policies during globalisation. The opening up of markets has domestic industries facing a highly competitive world, resulting in the closure of many industries. Trade barriers erected by developed countries have hampered the growth of exports of labour-intensive goods from South Asia. Provision of social safety nets in the region has been weakened, as the governments' ability to help the victims of globalisation has been eroded.
In South Asia the absolute number of people in poverty has increased, despite the fact that the largest country in the region (India) has had a growth rate of over 7.0 per cent. In South Asia, the imbalance between social and economic development in the 1990s has led to insignificant improvement in the poverty levels. The poor are being increasingly marginalised. Inter and intra-regional disparities have persisted. Income distribution has been skewed in favour of higher-income groups.
This situation has, thus, been persisting despite the fact that South Asian countries have been implementing several poverty alleviation programmes over the past decades. One reason for this is the declining amount of resource allocations to these programmes in real terms, because of the on set of globalisation. Furthermore, the magnitude of unemployment and underemployment, always high in South Asia, has been worsened by recent policy initiatives. Employment expansion has not been significant in any of the countries. Due to the prevalence of high illiteracy rates and low levels of educational attainment, the quality of the labour force has continued to remain relatively poor. As a result, governments in South Asia are finding it increasingly difficult to allocate adequate resources for social sector programmes in a situation where their revenue earnings are not rising but costs of debt servicing are increasing diminished revenue and increased costs of debt servicing.
In this context, South Asian nations face one key challenge about investing more in their human resource development than topic and also raising the quality of the same in the midst of many critical constraints arising out of a non-inclusive process of globalisation. Meeting this challenge holds the key to their efforts for improved economic management and alleviation of poverty. Admittedly, national endeavours will be important for the purpose. But without favourable international conditions which will facilitate an inclusive process of globalisation, such endeavours will not alone help achieve the objectives of human resource development.
There are more than one billion people living in South Asia today. But the annual per capita expenditure on priority areas for human resource development like basic education, primary health care, family planning, safe drinking water, and nutritional programmes is low in this region -- just $3.0 in Pakistan and $2.0 in Bangladesh.
To put this in perspective one might compare the situation in other Asian nations such as Malaysia ($123) and Korea ($133). These Asian economies have increased investment in human development as a key strategy of economic growth. The policy makers in South Asia are yet to draw lesson from this. As a result, all countries in South Asia (except Sri Lanka) fall into the category of Low Human Development.
This message has, again, been served by the Human Development Report, 2006 in South Asia that was released this week.
A number of the country's noted economists, while taking part in discussions at the launching ceremony of the report in Dhaka, said South Asia remains the 'most impoverished region' in the world in terms of income as well as human development indicators, such as health and education.
And Bangladesh is far ahead of its South Asian nations in some social indicators. While South Asia's share in the world population is 22 per cent, it contains more than 40 per cent of the world's poor. An estimated 437 million people live below US$1.0 a day, while three-fourths of the population survives below $2.0 a day.
The economists observed that Bangladesh achieved some 'fragmented' victories in areas like higher primary school enrollment, increase in female education and reduction in diarrhoeal deaths. But the reversal is decline in quality of services. So, the challenge facing Bangladesh is to take these fragmented victories to the holistic level, ensuring quality.
The Human Development Report, 2006 has sought to explore why poverty still continues to exist in such a magnitude in a region that is doing fairly well in economic growth. The exclusive focus of the report is the impact of economic policies on poverty to assess whether the rising economic growth in South Asia has been making any difference to the incidence of poverty in the region, and to examine the impact of the numerous poverty alleviation programmes that the governments in the region are implementing.
Poor human development outcomes are the result of both supply and demand-side constraints. Many children in the region, particularly girls, do not have access to primary and secondary schools, while the quality of education remains an issue for those in school. Limited coverage and varying service quality are also of concern in the health sector. In addition many poor families lack the resources to send their children to school or to ensure that all family members receive adequate health care when needed, with resources also being compromised by adverse shocks to income. The lack of information about the (long-term) benefits of education and good health may also act as deterrents to human capital investments among the poor and vulnerable.
The levels of human development, though improved since the 1960s, have started to stagnate or even decline. Most South Asian countries failed to maintain a balance between economic and social development policies during globalisation. The opening up of markets has domestic industries facing a highly competitive world, resulting in the closure of many industries. Trade barriers erected by developed countries have hampered the growth of exports of labour-intensive goods from South Asia. Provision of social safety nets in the region has been weakened, as the governments' ability to help the victims of globalisation has been eroded.
In South Asia the absolute number of people in poverty has increased, despite the fact that the largest country in the region (India) has had a growth rate of over 7.0 per cent. In South Asia, the imbalance between social and economic development in the 1990s has led to insignificant improvement in the poverty levels. The poor are being increasingly marginalised. Inter and intra-regional disparities have persisted. Income distribution has been skewed in favour of higher-income groups.
This situation has, thus, been persisting despite the fact that South Asian countries have been implementing several poverty alleviation programmes over the past decades. One reason for this is the declining amount of resource allocations to these programmes in real terms, because of the on set of globalisation. Furthermore, the magnitude of unemployment and underemployment, always high in South Asia, has been worsened by recent policy initiatives. Employment expansion has not been significant in any of the countries. Due to the prevalence of high illiteracy rates and low levels of educational attainment, the quality of the labour force has continued to remain relatively poor. As a result, governments in South Asia are finding it increasingly difficult to allocate adequate resources for social sector programmes in a situation where their revenue earnings are not rising but costs of debt servicing are increasing diminished revenue and increased costs of debt servicing.
In this context, South Asian nations face one key challenge about investing more in their human resource development than topic and also raising the quality of the same in the midst of many critical constraints arising out of a non-inclusive process of globalisation. Meeting this challenge holds the key to their efforts for improved economic management and alleviation of poverty. Admittedly, national endeavours will be important for the purpose. But without favourable international conditions which will facilitate an inclusive process of globalisation, such endeavours will not alone help achieve the objectives of human resource development.