Media Center

News Release

Email this   printer friendly format

Asia Faces Challenge Of Finding Jobs For Its Youth, ADB Warns Poverty Forum

Social protection strategy being finalized

MANILA, PHILIPPINES (8 February 2001) - Forty percent of the Asia-Pacific population is under 19 years old - and many face poverty instead of jobs unless sufficient economic activity is generated, an Asian Development Bank official told an Asia Pacific Forum on Poverty today.

"Asia is a young, rural continent," said Karti Sandilya, manager of ADB's Poverty Reduction Unit. "Social protection programs and policies should be built to respond to Asia's needs. The region does not have adequate protection systems to reduce the impact of shocks on its population. As a result, risks will continue to have devastating implications for poverty, inequality and the prospects of long term growth."

To help meet the need, ADB is finalizing a proposed social protection strategy to reduce risks for the most vulnerable groups, including the unemployed, women, children, the elderly, and victims of natural disasters. The proposed strategy paper, which will be discussed by ADB's Board of Directors within the first quarter of 2001, says the Asian financial crisis has underscored the fact that many vulnerable groups have been seriously affected by the crisis and are bypassed by economic growth.

The paper notes that, demographically, the major issue in the years 2000-2015 is the predominance of children and young new entrants into the labor market. This has clear implications for education, health, child protection, labor market policies for the realization of human potential and creation of opportunities of self-reliance. "The development challenge of the Asia-Pacific region is to achieve sufficient pro-poor sustainable growth to secure inclusion of the poor and the young new entrants in the development process, " it states.

The proposed strategy notes that four main challenges facing Asia and the Pacific are a population explosion, high levels of poverty and the size of informal sector, the inadequacy of most social protection mechanisms, and the impact of globalization.

"The financial crisis showed that inadequate and under-developed social protection systems have exposed their working populations to excessive risk, increased the incidence of poverty and threatened to undermine longer-term human capital investments," said Isabel Ortiz, an ADB economist who specializes in poverty reduction.

While globalization expands opportunities for growth, it also increases the risk of macroeconomic shocks. "To assure social progress, protection and safety nets need to be brought to the forefront of the agenda in many developing countries," said Ms. Ortiz. "Social protection policies and programs should help communities and individuals reduce their exposure to risks which include ill health, aging and death, natural and civil catastrophes, and economic shocks.

ADB's proposed social protection strategy contains five components:

• labor market policies and programs to facilitate employment and promote efficient labor markets
• social insurance programs to cushion the risks of unemployment, disability, sickness, maternity, work injury and old age
• social assistance and welfare services to assist the most vulnerable, including the disabled, single parents, battered women, substance abusers and refugees
• schemes to protect the informal sector and rural communities. These include micro-insurance, social funds and disaster preparedness and management schemes
• child protection to secure the development of the region's future workforce

One example of ADB's approach are skills development projects in Kyrgyz Republic and Papua New Guinea for young new entrants into the labor market. Another example is a recently-approved project for Indonesia to help female street children, who are often victims of sexual abuse and child prostitution. The project, run with NGOs, enables girls, who make up 20 percent of the Indonesia's estimated 170,000 street children, to be given counseling as well as heath and medical care. In the Philippines, ADB is helping five million children through an integrated health, nutrition and education program. ADB is also helping the elderly by helping to reform pension systems in many countries.

"As well as reducing poverty and vulnerability, well-designed social protection programs will contribute to economic growth through investments in human capital and increases in the productivity of the workforce," said Ms Ortiz.

The four-day Poverty Forum, which ends today, is being organized by the Asian Development Bank for representatives of government, donor agencies, NGOs and academic institutions to debate how best to address the needs of the poor and work towards reaching a consensus on strategies for reducing poverty.

Contacts