Asia, Pacific Lead World In Millennium Development Goals, Says Report

BANGKOK, May 29 (Bernama) -- Asia and the Pacific have led the world in the drive to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with the proportion of people living on less than US$1.25 per day projected to fall from 53 per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent by the end of the year. But even where the goals have been met, millions of people are still deprived, says a new United Nations report. The final assessment of regional progress towards the MDGs, 'Making it Happen: Technology, Finance and Statistics for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific' presents an optimistic picture of how far the region has come. The report, jointly published by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), comes at a critical point as the United Nations transitions from the development-focused MDGs to a post-2015 development agenda. To maintain the momentum for the post-2015 agenda, the report notes, the region will need to address three key areas of implementation: extending the benefits of technology to all, mobilising the necessary financial resources, and building statistical systems that can monitor the progress of the poorest groups to ensure that no one is left behind. "The Asia-Pacific region has made great progress, helping drive the world towards major success but unfinished business remains," explained Dr Shamshad Akhtar, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP. "To maintain momentum for the post-2015 agenda, the region needs a data revolution. The world is seeing explosive growth in the production of data, particularly Big Data, generated from the use of the Internet, our mobile electronic devices and satellite imagery," she said. She said that to fully utilise these new sources "we should be exploring new technological possibilities for the production of statistics". The report shows that between 1990 and 2012, the proportion of the region’s population living on less than US$1.25 per day fell from 53 to 14 per cent, and by 2015 it is projected to fall to 12 per cent. In addition to the dramatic drop in poverty level, more than two-thirds of countries are expected to halve the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water by 2015. In some instances, where goals have been met, there is still much progress to be made, and several goals continue to lag behind. In 2012, some 569 million people were still living on less than $1.25 per day, 21 million children were not enrolled in primary school, and more than one-fifth of under-five children (75 million) were underweight. In addition, 1.2 billion people in rural areas, and 480 million in urban areas, still lacked access to basic sanitation. --BERNAMA