Number of poor in Asia-Pacific drops: UN agency

The proportion of the region's population living on less than $1.25 a day fell from 53 percent to 14 percent between 1990 and 2012, according to the latest report of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

By the end of 2015, the number will fall to 12 percent, said the MDG report released at the headquarters of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), a Bangkok-based UN organisation of 53 nations, mainly from Asia and the Pacific Island areas.

In addition to the dramatic drop in poverty levels, more than two-thirds of countries are expected to halve the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water by 2015, according to the report.

The report also said nearly all primary-aged children now complete school and students at all levels of education benefit from gender parity.

Even for some of the targets that have not been achieved, there have been impressive advances. For instance, the rates of under-five and infant mortality fell short of the required two-thirds reduction, but passed the 50 percent mark. Often, the most rapid progress was registered in countries that started furthest behind, the report said.

The final assessment of regional progress toward the MDGs, 'Making it happen: technology, finance and statistics for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific' was jointly published by UN ESCAP, the United Nations Development Programme and the Asian Development Bank.

To maintain the momentum for the post-2015 agenda, the report identified three important areas to be addressed: the benefits of technology to all, necessary financial resources and statistical systems that can monitor the progress of the poorest groups to ensure that no-one is left behind.

“The Asia-Pacific region has made great progress, helping drive the world towards major success, but unfinished business remains,” Shamshad Akhtar, UN under-secretary-general and executive secretary of ESCAP, said.

“To maintain momentum for the post-2015 agenda, the region needs a data revolution. The world is seeing explosive growth in the production of data, particularly Big Data, generated from the use of the internet, our mobile electronic devices and satellite imagery. To fully utilise these new sources we should be exploring new technological possibilities for the production of statistics," said Akhtar.

Stephen Groff, vice-president of ADB, called for a shift from an aid-centric approach on development finance to much wider financing for development.

“Governments, development partners, municipalities, businesses, financial and civil society groups will have to explore all possible sources of finance -- public and private, whether domestic or international -- to see how these can be coherently combined around shared agenda to meeting the SDGs (sustainable development goals)," he said.

In some instances, where goals have been met, there is still much progress to be made, and several goals continue to lag behind, Groff said.

In 2012, 569 million people were still living on less than $1.25 per day, 21 million children were not enrolled in primary school, and more than a fifth of under-five children or 75 million were underweight, he said.

In addition, 1.2 billion people in rural areas, and 480 million in urban areas, still lacked access to basic sanitation, Groff added.

In 2001, the UN adopted the MDGs with eight targeted areas mostly education, health, gender equity and climate change to eradicate poverty substantially in the member countries by the end of 2015.

The UN is going to launch the SDGs, another 15-year target-based fight against poverty with 17 areas to address 169 different issues like removing trade barriers. The UN is scheduled to launch the SDGs by holding the SDG summit at the UN headquarters in New York in September.