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Fighting Poverty in Asia: The Challenges and Opportunities

Speech by
Ursula Schaefer-Preuss
Vice President, Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development
Asian Development Bank

At the Conference on "Taking Action for the World's Poor and Hungry People"

17 October 2007
Beijing, People's Republic of China

I.  Introduction

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, Good morning.

It is my privilege to represent the Asian Development Bank at this important conference. May I take this opportunity to express our thanks to the conference organizers, The State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOPAD) of China and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). We appreciate your tireless efforts for making this Conference possible.

As a precursor to this conference, ADB hosted a policy forum on agricultural and rural development for reducing poverty and hunger in Asia and the Pacific this August in Manila, Philippines. Thus, I believe this conference is another clear indication of our strong partnership and the significance of the issues surrounding poverty in Asia.

Today, I am pleased that we are gathering with many development partners to discuss the challenges and opportunities in alleviating global poverty and hunger, and what more and may be differently needs to be done in the future. I also hope to give to all of you some insights on ADB's role in contributing to alleviating poverty in the Asia-Pacific region, including our past achievements and future challenges.

II.  The Challenges

I believe this conference is very timely, since we have now reached the half-way mark in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. I also acknowledge the presence of Dr. Hafiz Pasha of UNDP - together with UNDP and UNESCAP, ADB has recently launched a report on Asia's progress towards meeting the MDGs.¹ Overall, the report finds that we still face many significant challenges in meeting the MDGs. Please allow me to summarize the main findings of the report:

• Income poverty in Asia, as measured by the $1 per day benchmark, is declining - much due to the People's Republic of China's (PRC's) rapid growth. However, the region still has more than 600 million people living on less than $1 per day; and about 1.8 billion people living on less than $2 per day.



• While the goals on education have made steady progress, young girls in the region still lack access to primary education. On health, we have made important progress, but linked with child malnutrition, infant mortality in Asia is around 60 per thousand live births - which is almost double that of Latin America and the Caribbean. For maternal mortality, the figure for Asia is around 300 per 100,000 live births, which is about 30% higher than that of Latin America and the Caribbean.



• For sustainable development, the region has been under-performing - and the report warns that we may not be able to meet the MDG targets. Ranging from CO2 emissions to clean water and sanitation, Asia faces the twin challenge of ensuring energy security and preventing environmental degradation. Protecting the environment is a critical challenge on poverty alleviation since it will lead to increased distress on agriculture and food security, floods and other natural disasters, while significant concerns on human habitat and safety remain. The poorest people in the region will suffer first and most.



• The report also finds that our society's most vulnerable groups - children, women, and those living in rural areas - are suffering the most. Asia is the fastest growing region in the world, and yet if specific actions are not taken, there will be many people falling behind, not being able to benefit from the growth. I would also like to emphasize that the rural-urban disparity is rising - in almost all aspects of the MDG targets. Compared to urban residents, rural residents have far less access - if at all - to technology, infrastructure, markets, and various forms of social protection.

These statistics indicate that there are many remaining challenges for all of us. Here, I would like to emphasize that many of the significant challenges are not solely on income poverty. In fact, as reflected through the main principles of the MDGs, alleviating poverty and hunger means we have to address the needs in various economic and social policies - ranging from health, environment, labor, rural and urban, social protection, infrastructure - at regional, national and local levels. This also means that in the context of the global commitments like the MDGs, we all have to identify ways to meet our goals within the local settings.

As I have outlined the challenges, I also want to convey some note of optimism as well. In many parts of Asia, we have realized that the governments are becoming much more proactive in understanding and tackling the complexities of poverty. Here, I believe our host country, the PRC, provides a good example. As indicated in its 11th Five-Year Plan, the PRC Government has made important gains in fighting poverty and meeting the Millennium Development Goals. The reduction in income poverty in the PRC as noted earlier provides an important success story that the rest of Asia can learn from. Through its Five-Year Plan, the Government has also emphasized the importance of targeting rural poverty reduction - as part of its objective of developing a more 'harmonious society" - where no one is left to be poor and hungry.

III.  ADB's Response

Now, please allow me to briefly explain ADB's response to alleviate poverty and hunger in the region. Since our establishment in 1968, ADB has worked closely with our development partners to overcome poverty in the Asia and Pacific region. Over the past 40 years we have invested more than $110 billion in development finance and advisory assistance to help stimulate economic growth, advance social progress, and support effective markets and just societies through good governance.

In 1999, on the eve of the new millennium, ADB articulated, through its Poverty Reduction Strategy, our determination to free the region from poverty. After the Millennium Summit of 2000, ADB joined the international community in efforts to achieve the MDGs.

As our overarching goal is poverty reduction, we believe that our development interventions to reduce poverty should cover all dimensions of the problem, including the income as well as the human or non-income dimensions of poverty. This means that we will target our efforts to enhance people's access to infrastructure, education and employment, health and basic social services, clean environment and energy, as well as gender and other forms of equality. Accordingly, the targets for the income and non-income dimensions of poverty under the MDGs were employed in measuring the impact of our overall development efforts.

Here in the PRC, we have approached the challenges with a comprehensive package of assistance projects. For example, ADB is currently planning ways to support rural development - as a way to assist in the Government's goal of 'harmonious society'. Working closely with the Government, ADB will target areas of the central and western provinces, as well as traditional industrial areas of the northeast, and support financing needs for rural infrastructure - including rural transport, rural energy, water supply and sanitation. In addition, ADB will support projects linking small-scale farmers to markets and promoting value-adding activities in agriculture. To help open new economic opportunities in rural areas, ADB will promote better access to credit in poor areas through micro-financing arrangements for agro-businesses. By this we can contribute directly and indirectly to alleviating poverty and hunger in particular in remote areas.

In addition, we are paying a much higher attention on the needs for environmental protection. For example, through ADB's Efficient Utilization of Agricultural Wastes Project, we aim to improve the environment and promote economic growth to improve the living conditions of rural households in the provinces of Henan, Jiangxi, Hubei and Shanxi. The project will generate cleaner bio-gas energy and increase the awareness of biomass rural energy development.

These are just some examples of how ADB has assisted our partners in addressing the diverse and complex nature of poverty alleviation. In addition, we have also learned from our experiences of the past, and have been identifying ways for continued improvements. Mainly, we are identifying ways to ensure that the region can benefit from a more inclusive growth - where opportunities and access for economic and social benefits can be shared by many, and not just the few. In this, and for the next few days, I hope we can all learn from each other on the ways in which this can be more effectively achieved.

IV.  Conclusions

Ladies and gentlemen, let me close by thanking the organizers and participants again for this important conference. I also hope I was able to provide all of you with a clearer view of the main issues concerning poverty alleviation for Asia, and the role of ADB. Of course, ADB can not do this alone, and I hope that all of you will form an even stronger partnership with us and further assist the region in meeting the MDGs.

For its part, ADB's future contributions to poverty reduction in Asia will draw on the solid foundations of sustained cooperation with partners like LGOPAD. It will also seek new ways to combine strengths with other organizations, such as the aforementioned August forum co-hosted by IFPRI.

Let me close by saying that ADB remains a strong partner in the region's development, ready to move forward alongside developing Asia and the Pacific in taking action for the poor and the hungry. Our long journey ahead is to build one "harmonious" Asia - an Asia with opportunities open to all, free of poverty, and sharing prosperity.

Thank you, and best wishes for a fruitful discussion for the next two days.