6 March 2006
Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) -- A new report from the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, UNESCAP paints a sad picture of how Asia has been overlooked by aid donors. Asia has received far less aid than other regions of the world. This is true in comparison to the size of the population, the level of income and the number of poor in the region.
The report "Achieving the MDGs in Asia: a Case for More Aid? " was released at the "Asia 2015 Conference Promoting Growth, Ending Poverty " in London on 6-7 March 2006. The report's findings,supported by funding from the Asian Development Bank, was presented to the high-level delegates today by UNESCAP Executive Secretary Mr Kim Hak-Su.
The UNESCAP report found Asia accounts for the lion's share of people living in rural areas without access to sanitation, underweight children, malnourished people, people on living less than a dollar a day, and TB cases in the world.
Three quarters of all Asians in rural areas without access to sanitation live in China and India.
In absolute terms, India is home to 38 per cent of the world total of underweight children below the age of 5, more than one and a half times the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. India also has more than double the amount of illiterate 15-24 year old women than in any other sub region of the world, including sub Saharan Africa.
"The number of people in Asia living with HIV/AIDS — 7.6 million between the ages 15 and 49, of which 5.1 million in India alone, compared to 23.8 million in Sub-Saharan Africa — is, however, far from insignificant. HIV/AIDS is also rapidly spreading in some parts of Asia, in particular the CIS countries and India. Asia as a whole accounts for more than two thirds of the world’s TB cases and deaths," the report stated.
India, the sub region with the largest number of poor, underweight children, malnourished people and rural people without access to sanitation, received just about a dollar per head of ODA in 2004. China received a similar amount. These amounts are in complete contrast with those received by Oceania (US$ 190 per head) and the European countries in transition (US$ 87 per head), two regions whose shares in the world population are negligible and the contributions to the number of the world’s economically and socially poor are relatively small.
The report analyses aid to sub regions in the world on a needs basis calculated on percentage share of underweight children and other MDG indicators, finding that Asia is being ignored in favour of Africa. It says most sub regions in Asia are receiving relatively "small shares of the global aid total" and proves this is unfair.
The share of ODA in Gross National Income (GNI) is substantial for Sub-Saharan Africa (4.0 per cent) in contrast, to China and India, which received only around US$ 1 ODA per person, which is a mere 0.1 per cent and 0.2 per cent of their GNI, respectively. In other words, Sub-Saharan Africa gets 40 times more aid than China.
ODA per capita receipts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the CIS countries of Asia, Western Asia and the Caribbean range from US$ 21 to US$ 26. Southern Asia and South-Eastern Asia received — with US$ 11 and US$ 10 per head respectively — also less aid than the number of the economically and socially poor in these regions would justify.
These findings forms the basis of a push from UNESCAP to secure a better deal for Asia at the Asia 2015 conference.
