UN: Asia leads in reducing poverty, falters elsewhere<\/p>\n
Paris Lord, Agence France-Presse\/Bangkok<\/p>\n
Asia leads the world in meeting a key development goal of halving
\nextreme poverty by 2015 but has fallen well short in other areas
\nincluding education, HIV\/AIDS and child mortality, the United
\nNations said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The largest continent has recorded a dramatic reduction in
\npoverty, with 703 million Asians living on less than a dollar a
\nday in 2001 compared with 936 million in 1990, according to the
\nUN.<\/p>\n
Economic growth in the world's most populous countries, China
\nand India, helped reduce the number of people in extreme poverty.<\/p>\n
But that contrasts with regional setbacks in some of the UN's
\nseven other Millennium Development Goals, including lagging
\nschool enrollments, widening gender gaps and little or no
\nimprovement in reducing child mortality.<\/p>\n
While income levels in the region increased substantially,
\n\"the other qualitative side, education, safe drinking water,
\nsanitation and other social indicators do not necessarily go
\nalong with the poverty line,\" said the UN's regional chief, Kim
\nHak-su, who is executive secretary of the UN's Economic and
\nSocial Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).<\/p>\n
To mark the Asian release of the Millennium Development Goals
\nReport 2005, Kim said the region had high levels of slum dwellers
\nand people living with HIV\/AIDS.<\/p>\n
The regional picture of the fourth UN goal, reducing child
\nmortality, was \"not good\", Kim said, as the report showed 10,000
\nchildren died in southern Asia daily because of poverty and
\nmalnourishment.<\/p>\n
\"Countries that have experienced conflict, including Cambodia
\nand Iraq, have seen sharp increases or no improvement in child
\nmortality since 1990,\" the 44-page report said.<\/p>\n
\"Countries reeling from AIDS, especially in southern Africa,
\nhave also seen sudden rises in under-five mortality,\" it added.<\/p>\n
It was a similar picture for the UN's fifth goal of raising
\nlevels of maternal health, Kim said. \"More than 500,000 women die
\neach year during pregnancy or child birth,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"Progress in reducing maternal deaths is not occurring in the
\ncountries where giving birth is most risky.<\/p>\n
Improvements were recorded in East and Southeast Asia, \"but
\nsouthern Asia has the lowest level of professional care at birth
\nin the world,\" Kim said. \"It's alarming.\"<\/p>\n
The development goals were set by 189 UN member countries in
\n2000 as part of the UN's \"millennium declaration\", with 2015 the
\ntarget to achieve the goals and using 1990 as the base line.<\/p>\n
World leaders will meet at the UN in New York in September to
\nassess how far their pledges have been fulfilled five years on,
\nand decide on what further steps are needed, UN Secretary General
\nKofi Annan said in the report's foreword.<\/p>\n
\"In many ways, the task this year will be much harder than it
\nwas in 2000,\" Annan said. \"Instead of setting targets, this time
\nleaders must decide how to achieve them.\"<\/p>\n
Annan warned that if current trends persisted, there was a
\nrisk many of the poorest countries will not be able to meet many
\nof the goals.<\/p>\n
\"Considering how far we have come, such a failure would mark a
\ntragically missed opportunity,\" Annan said.<\/p>",
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