South Asia to cut poverty by two-thirds in a decade
26 Jun '06
5 min read
World Bank (WB) announces that the building on recent strong growth, countries in South Asia can dramatically reduce poverty by embracing policies aimed at increasing investment and productivity, and improving the quality of labor, while addressing pervasive income inequalities and poor service delivery, according to Economic Growth in South Asia, a World Bank report released today.
The report finds that while countries in the region are growing rapidly, evidence shows that expansion, due to its uneven nature, is deepening income inequality and may be hard to sustain in the longer term if the key constraints are not addressed.
“South Asia's decade-long economic expansion has raised the possibility that the sub-continent could eliminate poverty in our lifetime,” says Shantayanan Devarajan, co-author of the report and World Bank Chief Economist for the South Asia region. “But to realize this dream, South Asians must create the conditions and incentives necessary to sustain and accelerate growth that benefits all. The economic well-being of several hundred millions of people depends on it.”
A striking feature of the report is analysis showing that South Asian countries could see single-digit poverty rates in a decade if economic growth accelerates to 10 percent a year until 2015. This means the number of people living in poverty could go down by two-thirds in less than ten years.
Looking back at the remarkable economic performance of the past decade, the report suggests South Asian countries should aspire to this goal and emulate the East Asian growth rates of 7 to 10 percent that lifted millions of people out of poverty in relatively few years.
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