Projects poverty rate to fall from 51 p.c. in 1990 to 22 p.c. in 2015

India and China have recorded the sharpest decline in poverty figures in the Asian region with poverty rate projected to fall from 51 per cent in 1990 to about 22 per cent in 2015 – on track to cut poverty in half by the millennium development goals (MDGs) target – in China, the poverty rate is expected to fall below 5 per cent by 2015, according to the latest MDGs Report, 2011 released by the United Nations.

Asia is also making steady progress in improving child and maternal health but South Asia, of which India is a part, lags in nutrition, sanitation and gender equality. Despite strong improvements in political participation, only 18 per cent of parliamentary seats were held by women in Southern and South Eastern Asia in 2011.

In China and India combined, the number of people living in extreme poverty between 1990 and 2005 declined by 455 million, and an additional 320 million people are expected to join their ranks by 2015.

The proportion of people living on less than $ 1.25 a day – the international poverty line defined by the World Bank – fell from 60 per cent to 16 per cent between 1990 and 2005 in Eastern Asia and from 39 per cent to 19 per cent in South Eastern Asia, the report suggests.

Maternal health

Maternal health has greatly improved across the region and according to the report, between 1990 and 2006, maternal mortality declined by 63 per cent, 57 per cent and 53 per cent respectively in Eastern, South-Eastern and Southern Asia owing to increases in skilled attendance at birth, skilled antenatal care and contraceptive use, as well as reductions in adolescent childbearing, most notably in Southern Asia. But despite these advances, South Asia still has the second highest level of maternal mortality among all regions with 280 deaths per 100,000 live births.

South Asia also saw the strongest improvement worldwide in immunisation against measles – an important cause of child deaths in the developing world, with the proportion of children aged 12-23 months who received at least one dose of measles vaccine rising from 56 per cent to 75 per cent between 2000 and 2009. The region, however, is lagging behind in terms of child nutrition with 43 per cent of children under five years of age underweight in 2009 indicating the highest rate of child malnutrition in the world. The poorest families have made the slowest progress; the poorest 20 per cent of households showed no meaningful improvement in child under-nutrition between 1995 and 2009, while in the richest 20 per cent of households, child under-nutrition fell by almost one-third, the report says.

Access to primary education

Worse, in Southern Asia, only 36 per cent of the population use an improved sanitation facility and nearly half the population practices open defecation – the highest rate among all regions of the world. But, on the positive side, the region has shown strong progress on access to primary education. The sub-region reached 91 per cent enrolment in 2009, up from 79 per cent in 1999, and is on track to meet the target of universal primary education by 2015. Girls, however, remain at a distinct disadvantage with only 95 per cent girls enrolled in primary education, 89 in secondary education, and 74 girls in tertiary education for every 100 boys.