South Asia, South East Asia

$1.25/day Isn’t Enough for the Asian Extreme Poor

by Ippei Tsuruga Views: 196
photo credit: kPluto
photo credit: kPluto

In a recent report, Asian Development Bank (ADB) finds that $1.25/day is not enough to maintain minimum welfare in Asia.

In terms of the $1.25/day poverty line, poverty headcount ratio decreased to 12 percent and 31 percent in East Asia and South Asia in 2010, respectively. However, their new calculation of extreme poverty headcount is 49.5 percent in Asia. Their projection also shows that there would be over 17 percent of the people living in extreme poverty in 2030. The huge gap between the conventional method and the new one is mainly caused by the impact estimation of vulnerability. Dr. Guanghua Wan, Principal Economist at ADB, argues that vulnerability is critically important for the poor in Asia but not seriously considered in the poverty calculation.

Reference
ADB (2014) Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2014
DW (2014) Interview of Guanghua Wan, Principal Economist at Asian Development Bank.

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Author: Ippei TsurugaIppei Tsuruga is Social Protection Programme Manager for Indonesia at International Labour Organization. He has been managing programmes and providing technical contributions to social security reforms at the country level in Indonesia, Viet Nam and Myanmar, and also contributing to research and knowledge management at the ASEAN regional and global levels. He has been involved in various policy discussions and research activities on unemployment benefit, old-age, invalidity and survivors’ benefits, maternity benefit, sickness benefit, and the extension of social protection to workers in the informal economy. He has worked at the ILO Country Office for Indonesia and Timor-Leste, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and the Social Protection Department; and JICA Washington D.C. Office, Research Department, Country Office for Kenya, and Africa Department for Kenya, Nigeria and Somalia.

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