Over 60pc world poor live in South Asia: report

LAHORE: A report titled “South Asia and the future of pro-people development: the centrality of social justice and equality” by a network of NGOs was launched at the Government College University, Lahore.

The poverty report argued that while South Asia houses 22 percent of the world’s population, the region, however has only 1.3% of the world’s income. The idea that market will correct imbalances through demand and supply has led to the gradual withdrawal of the state from publicly providing services like education and health. Depleting investment and state support resulted in a crisis in agriculture, compromising food security and farmer’s livelihood. Growing informalisation of labour had added to the people’s miseries.

Dr Padma Prasad Khatiwada, Associate Professor Population Studies, Tribhuvan University (Kathmandu) spoke of how market glorification had multiplied people’s miseries in South Asia, and paved the way for feudal and fundamentalist forces to grow and the corporate sector to loot the common resources in the region. The speakers said that more than 60 percent of the world poor lived in South Asia with similar orders of magnitude for child labour and bonded labour. Dr Kaiser Bengali said one of the major contributions of the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was to empower the workers and peasants by giving them self-respect and dignity.