Alleviating South Asia’s Poverty
Need For Regional Cooperation

By Khilendra Basnyat

POVERTY, an age-old social malaise, is widespread in the world. It is not only a condition of economic inefficiency but also a condition of social and political exclusion.

Over the past decades, the development efforts of national and international community towards poverty alleviation have gained an important role, especially in the less developed countries of the world. However a large chunk of the total population still lives under extreme poverty, and the human development indicators present a gloomy picture. Due to this, the global challenge of poverty alleviation in the least developed countries is increasing.

Poverty in South Asia indicates absolute deprivation upbringing on basic sustenance of life. A culture of poverty has been transmitted from one generation to another in these countries.

In the existing poverty situation in the South Asian region, the poor are economically deprived. Apart from this, they are politically isolated and unorganised. Actually, poverty surpasses the narrow limit of income and includes the wide complexities of political and personal relations.

Although South Asia has high population growth rate, there has been no corresponding economic growth. While excessive growth of money supply and fiscal deficit in this region have created extra market power from the demand side, supply effect on prices is experienced only when the production cost is high. Devaluation has further aggravated the inflationary situation of this region.

The South Asian governments’ supportive measure such as subsidy, tax concession and infrastructure services have not been able to directly address poor people in different places, regions, races and communities.

Exports in the South Asian region hardly respond to international prices. High prices exclusive of currency depreciation at home has worsened trade and currency account balances, and failed to raise domestic productivity and the living standard of the people.

In South Asia, the dominance of traditional forces of consumption, production and marketing is continuous. This has hindered to transform the economy. What is more, resources and technology have remained under-employed.

Regardless of International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment programmes, the macroeconomic policies adopted in various forms of South Asian countries had an adverse effect on poverty alleviation.

According to a recently published report, trade among South Asian countries has remained at less than five per cent. Although globalisation has been in vogue in these countries, it has not helped reduce poverty. Rather it has widened income inequalities.

It has been discovered that South Asia has the highest incidence of poverty not only in terms of absolute numbers but also as a percentage of the population compared to any other regional group of countries in the world.

In South Asia, about forty-three per cent of the population lives in absolute poverty compared to fourteen per cent in East Asia (excluding China), twenty-four per cent in Latin America and thirty-nine per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the South Asian region, poverty is mainly concentrated in villages and widely distributed among the people in both rural and urban areas. It is intensified by the soaring prices of basic goods.

The percentage of population deprived of basic services such as access to safe drinking water, health and sanitation in some South Asian countries is also high. This is testified by the fact that the percentage of population without access to safe drinking water is thirty-seven in India, forty in Pakistan, fifty-two in Nepal and forty-three in Sri Lanka.

Regarding access to health services, Pakistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh have thirty-five to fifty-five percentages of their population deprived of this. However, India and Sri Lanka appear to be doing better than others with figures of fifteen and forty-seven percentages, respectively.

The percentage of population deprived of sanitation facilities is also high in South Asia even by developing country standard in the case of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka where the figure ranges from forty-seven to seventy-six. While India is slightly below the South Asian average at twenty-nine, Sri Lanka appears to be doing well at eighteen.

In South Asia, malnourished as a percentage of population is as much as fifty-three compared to the overall poverty figure of thirty-five. Likewise, in Pakistan the incidence of child malnutrition is thirty-eight per cent to the overall poverty figure of thirty-five.

Bangladesh, which has the highest incidence of child malnutrition, at sixty-seven per cent, and a poverty incidence of forty-six per cent. In Sri Lanka the incidence of child malnutrition is thirty-eight per cent compared to a poverty incidence of twenty-two per cent.

the overall weighted average in South Asia for the incidence of child malnutrition is fifty-seven per cent compared to the poverty incidence of thirty-five per cent.

Although South Asia is the poorest region, it is the most militarised region of the world. The arms race has caused adverse impact on the alleviation of poverty in this region. India and Pakistan alone account for ninety-three per cent of the total military expenditure in South Asia.

While global military spending declined by thirty-seven per cent during 1987-94, military expenditure in South Asia increased by twelve per cent. These military expenditures in South Asian countries are being done in the name of achieving national security.

In a situation where fifty-three per cent of the children in South Asia are malnourished and thirty-six per cent of the population are deprived of safe drinking water, military spending and the provision of basic services are worth considering.

If poverty is to alleviate in South Asia, there is a need to get out of the idea of nuclearised imagination.

In the eleventh SAARC Summit, for poverty alleviation, the leaders decided to undertake sustained measures to extend rural micro credit porogrammes with emphasis on women and the poor. They specially instructed the Technical Committees to identify programmes as well as activities on poverty alleviation.

Apart from directing the Council of Ministers to take necessary steps to fully activate the existing three-tier mechanism for poverty alleviation, the SAARC leaders instructed the Council of Ministers to integrate poverty alleviation programmes into the development strategies of member states. In this regard, they agreed to reconstitute the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation with Nepal as its conveyor and Bangladesh a co-conveyor for reviewing the progress made in cooperation on poverty alleviation and for suggesting appropriate and effective measures.

No doubt, in the past, declarations were adopted and commitments were reiterated for the welfare of SAARC nations. However, still the people of this region are not in a position to point out actual gains they can enjoy. In fact, the problem with SAARC is not the lack of joint commitment to promote regional cooperation. It is actually the implementation aspect that is lacking.

The South Asian states have also not prepared themselves adequately for the work they have to perform. Thus, unpreparedness has made them unable to handle the task of alleviating poverty.

Failure of political as well as administrative institutions and misgovernance are a major cause of this unpreparedness. Every step towards regional cooperation among South Asian states will make for better governance for the region and help alleviate its poverty.

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