| MONTERREY,
Mexico -- One half of the world's population
and two thirds of the world's poor are in Asia,
yet
at the International Conference on Financing
for Development in Monterrey many delegates have
said
the focus is elsewhere.
Africa
has been getting a lot of attention. And "rightfully
so," said Karti Sandilya, the North American
regional representative of the Asian Development
Bank (ADB). But he added, "While Africa gets
a lot of attention, one must not lose sight of the
fact-and I don't think people do lose sight of the
fact-that more of the world's poor are in Asia than
Africa."
In Asia there are huge poverty-stricken populations
in China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam,
and North Korea, to name a few. Sandilya said,
however, that in China and India, where the largest
numbers of poor people live, there is strong
economic growth. In terms of the Millennium Development
Goals, he said, the prospect for reducing poverty
throughout Asia is very positive.
"Asia is a region that is doing economically
quite well," he said. "In East Asia
the Millennium Goal of halving poverty by 2015
has already been achieved, and South Asia looks
on target as well."
At a news conference on the eve of the summit,
UN spokeswoman Susan Markham was asked whether
there was cause for concern about the fact that
few Asian heads of state were coming to the Monterrey
conference. Markham replied that it was not a
concern, and that representation of the area
was indeed strong.
Sandilya agreed
that, despite the lack of Asian ministers,
there was no cause for concern: "The
document consensus has already been approved,
so it's more an issue of standing up and being
counted. Perhaps the Latin American venue is
too far-I don't think there's a reason to be
concerned."
Sandilya, who
co-chaired a roundtable discussion of government
officials, said the ADB had played
a particularly active role throughout the conference. "The
role of ADB is to tell people about the importance
of the region we serve and how important that
is for achieving the regional development goals
and reducing poverty," he said. "We
are also here to push for the region's need for
resources, and to learn what others are doing-to
learn what Latin America is doing, what Africa
is doing-and translate that knowledge in our
own region."
As the Monterrey
conference comes to a close, the issue of official
development assistance
(ODA) remains on everyone's mind. Whether or
not donor countries reach the target goal of
0.7 percent of national income, the new aid pledged
by Europe and the United States will affect the
livelihoods of people throughout the world, Sandilya
said. "ODA helps governments to find the
resources to make investments in primary health
care and primary education and safe water," he
added. "You need economic growth, but you
also need investment in health education and
water because economic growth needs a healthy,
literate workforce."
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