Asia's growth provide economic, social benefits to all
08 Oct '07
3 min read
The Asia and Pacific region as a whole is forging ahead on many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but there is uneven progress within countries and many of the less developed economies need global support to plug some of their key development gaps, says a new report released.
The report – “The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007” – states that the region is well on track and ahead of its peers in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to reduce extreme poverty by half, attain universal education and achieve gender parity in education by the target year 2015.
The MDG 2007 report was produced through a regional partnership among Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP).
“We are at the half-way mark towards the target date of 2015 and have a historic opportunity to change the lives of millions living in abject poverty,” says Shiladitya Chatterjee, Head of the Poverty Unit in ADB. “We need to adopt inclusive strategies to ensure that benefits of growth are shared equitably to sustain global growth and prosperity.”
The MDG 2007 report says if the countries in the region that are off track – either slow or regressing – were able to speed up and meet the MDG targets by 2015 then some 196 million people in the region would be lifted out of grinding poverty, 23 million more children would no longer suffer from hunger and nearly one million children would survive beyond their fifth birthday.
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