Catalog

	Table of Contents
p. 3 of 14 BACK | NEXT Preface Emerging Asia: Challenges to Development Regional Development Challenges The Global Context ADB’s Response to the Region’s Challenges The Strategic Agenda Implementing the Strategy Resources for the Strategy Next Steps

The Long-term Strategic Framework of The Asian Development Bank (2001-2015) : Emerging Asia: Challenges to Development

---

Regional Development Challenges

Poverty Reduction, Growth, and Sustainability. Poverty reduction remains the central challenge in the region. Robust, sustainable economic growth is essential for significant gains in poverty reduction, for addressing the diverse problems of underdevelopment, and more generally for improvements in the quality of life. Achieving the IDGs for the Asia and Pacific region will require major economic and social progress, robust, sustainable economic growth, and the mobilization of huge resources. The countries of the region need to address these challenges of growth and sustainability in a systematic manner. Building and upgrading physical and social infrastructure throughout the region is a primary condition for robust, sustained growth, with large investments required in social services such as education, health, water supply, sanitation, and shelter, especially in the poorer countries. Ensuring the environmental sustainability of growth in the region’s resource-based economies is essential for development and poverty reduction. Ensuring the participation of all stakeholders in development decision making and giving them equitable access to assets and opportunities are essential to maximize the benefits of growth and make development broad-based. Equity, especially gender equity, is also a key factor in transforming growth to development and reducing poverty in the region; the region has a long way to go before 50 percent of its population has an equal say and status in the development process. A key element in the fight against poverty over the next 15 years will be the spread of economic freedoms and rights, resulting from the demands of individuals (i) to participate more actively in decisions that affect their lives and interests, and (ii) to benefit from good governance and inclusive development. Thus, civil society will exert increased pressure for more effective, efficient, and responsive government.

Social Development. Accompanying growth must be a comprehensive program of social development that empowers weaker groups in society, and social support programs that respond to the long-term needs of the poor, the aged and the otherwise disadvantaged, as well as the shorter-terms needs arising from natural disasters or economic crises. Good governance is necessary to ensure efficient services to the poor, support the development process, increase the efficiency and effectiveness of public investment, and mobilize and regulate private sector resources. A key dimension is strengthening capacity at subnational levels, including provinces, states, urban areas, and local communities where the stakeholders in development live and where development, especially poverty reduction, actually takes place.

>Environment. Asia’s remarkable growth was accompanied by resource depletion and environmental degradation. Air and water pollution, water scarcity, desertification, and the depletion of natural resources are beginning to have an effect on agricultural productivity; are causing increasingly frequent disasters, such as floods and landslides; and have greatly impaired the quality of life in the region. Demands on the environment and the natural resource base will be even greater in the future. The challenge for the region is not only to preserve and protect the environment but to reverse environmental degradation while maintaining robust economic growth.

Urbanization. The extensive urbanization that has resulted from the region’s rapid growth, growing population, and increased rural-urban migration will continue to; in another two decades almost half of the region’s population will be urban. The result has been growing, heavily congested and polluted urban centers, with deteriorating living conditions and quality of life for large and growing numbers of residents, especially the poor. Managing urbanization will pose a major challenge for the region.

Demographic Shifts. The impact of demographic trends on all aspects of development will continue to be important across the region. During the early stages of the demographic transition the number of working age people increases dramatically. Per capita incomes will go up even without an increase in productivity, as long as the ratio of dependents to workers falls. East and Southeast Asia have to a large extent already reaped the benefits of this demographic “gift” and their challenge will be to deal with an aging population. However, the countries of South Asia have yet to benefit from the demographic transition and the challenge for them will be to ensure that enough growth is generated to employ the larger numbers of young people entering the working age population. The demographic transition also has important implications for social services such as education, health, and child protection.

Information and Communications. Managing information and communications technology poses a new but increasing challenge for ADB’s developing member countries (DMCs). The changes taking place present a unique opportunity for the DMCs to leap over some intermediate steps in development, but there is a risk that many countries could be left behind. The challenge is to ensure that the region as a whole benefits from the information revolution, that inequalities between countries do not worsen, and that the new technology helps bridge the gaps between the region and the developed world, and within the countries of the region.

>Regional Ties. An important factor in Asia’s development is the diversity of conditions and circumstances of the region’s countries, including differences in their levels of development. The diversity of the region’s economies has supported the emergence of intraregional investment, production, and trade linkages and integration, which have had an important role in the transformation of Asia and the growth and development of the participating economies. The strengthening of regional ties can further enhance the region’s development and promote economic and social harmony between nations. How best this can be achieved is a challenge that must be addressed.

Asia and the International Development Goals Reducing poverty, in all its forms, is the greatest challenge for the international community. Of the world's 6.0 billion people, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 a day and another 2.8 billion live on less than $2 a day. Eight of every 100 infants do not live to see their fifth birthday; 9 of every 100 boys and 14 of every 100 girls reach school age without enrolling in school. Poverty is also most visible among people who have no political representation or voice; those who have limited or no access to basic social services; and those who are vulnerable to ill health, economic dislocation, social injustice, and natural disasters. Following the agreements and resolutions of various world conferences organized by the United Nations in the first half of the 1990s, seven broad international development goals (IDGs) have been identified. Each IDG addresses one aspect of poverty, but they should all be seen as a whole in tackling the world’s poverty problems by 2015. The IDGs serve as benchmarks to the global effort to address the core causes of poverty. The IDGs are reduction in the incidence of extreme poverty by half between 1990 and 2015, 100 percent primary school enrollment by 2015, elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, reduction in infant and child mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015, reduction in maternal mortality ratios by three quarters between 1990 and 2015, access for all to reproductive health services by 2015, and implementation by all countries of a national sustainable development strategy by 2005 and reversal of the loss of environmental resources by 2015. The Asia and Pacific region has made a lot of progress in achieving the IDGs. The progress has, however, been uneven. South Asia lags behind with respect to several key indicators, as shown in the accompanying table, and considerable concerted efforts will be required if the IDGs are to be achieved. For East Asia in aggregate, many of the goals— including reduction in the incidence of poverty—had almost been achieved by 1998. However, much still needs to be done to reach the targets for reductions in child mortality and increased access to reproductive health care. Also, environmental deterioration and degradation remain a major concern across the region.

Private Sector Resources. Mobilizing private sector resources for development is essential at a time when governments in the region face an increasingly complex development agenda and the available resources are ever more thinly stretched. Increasing regional cooperation can help overcome the limited resource and market capacity of individual economies and promote development.

---

Back Emerging Asia: Challenges to Development	Next The Global Context