By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Sep 22 2005 (IPS)

Corruption is a major hurdle that stands in the way of governments in the Asia-Pacific region, trying to lift millions of people out of poverty and hunger, says U.N. Undersecretary General Kim Hak-Su.

To start with, child malnutrition in the region remains a paradox, because although there is sufficient grain, ”institutional hurdles” are coming in the way of delivery to children and to the poor, Kim said in an IPS interview on Thursday.

”There is a problem with the delivery system of rice and wheat,” and the solution lies in ”strengthening local governments and decentralising the grain distribution process,” Kim said. ”Governance is a big issue (in fighting poverty). Our member states must think about this”.

Willingness to combat corruption is seen by the fact that many countries in the region have signed the U.N. Convention against Corruption, which will come into effect on Dec. 14 this year, but far more will need to be done,going by reports from well-known watchdog groups like Transparency International (TI).

Asia-Pacific countries, starting with Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines, have consistently figured among the top ten in the Germany-based, TI’s annually-released barometer of the world’s most corrupt countries.

Kim said the pressure was now on governments to fight corruption and push for greater decentralisation of power in order to achieve the U.N. prescribed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for halving the incidence of poverty by 2015, as agreed to by governments at a 2000 summit.

Kim’s comments follow the U.N. summit in New York earlier this month where the world’s leaders met to review the progress made towards achieving the eight MDGs.

The goals cover poverty reduction, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child and maternal mortality, reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases like malaria, ensuring environmental stability, and increasing funds for development.

On current form, Asia will not have a single winner by that deadline 10 years hence, Kim had informed the U.N. meeting. ”Environmental sustainability is in trouble in Asia. It is a trade-off between high economic growth and environmental degradation”.

China and India, the region’s giants, and on whose record the region succeeds or fails collectively, offer the typical story of contradictions that have come to define the Asian continent’s struggle to meet the MDGs.

While both countries have recorded impressive economic growth rates over the past decade and have helped lift millions out of poverty, large numbers still remain below the extreme poverty line of living on less than one US dollar a day.

According to the Asian Development Bank (AsDB), there are some 621 million people, or nearly 20 percent of the region’s population, surviving on less than one dollar a day. Of that number, 327 million live in India, 173 million live in China and another 77 million live in the rest of South Asia.

Child malnutrition among these millions is disturbingly high, with close to 47 percent of children in South Asia condemned to such a fate, while South-east Asia has 29 percent malnourished children.

By contrast, sub-Saharan Africa, which lags behind the Asia-Pacific region in terms of economic growth, has 31 percent of its children who are malnourished.

And the likelihood of Asia’s booming economies coming to the rescue of the region’s poor in the months ahead appear dim, in the wake of a new report dealing with ”jobless growth” released this week by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

There is a growing ”employment gap” in the Asian region, the 74-page report stated, since ”the creation of new jobs has failed to keep pace with region’s impressive economic growth”.

Between 2003 and 2004, for instance, employment in the Asia-Pacific region increased by a ”disappointing” 1.6 percent, or by 25 million jobs, compared to the ”strong economic growth rate of over seven percent,” added the report.

The current global drumbeat towards greater privatisation of the health systems in the developing world will also not favour poor families who experience the pain of child mortality.

”Private sector motivation is profit making and they will not come in unless there are guarantees that profit can be made (by investing in health systems),” says Kim.

What is more, the amounts invested by governments towards public health systems remain low in the region. ”It is 11 US dollars per person every year in countries not on track to meet the MDGs,” adds Kim. ”And this is an average, which means the poor may not even get that amount”.

The cost of underfunded public health systems was brought home this week by World Health Organisation (WHO) officials, who said that close to 3,000 under-five die children every day in the Pacific region, mostly from ”common neonatal conditions, pneumonia and diarrhoea”.

”Most of these child deaths could be avoided were it not for the lack of basic health care or barriers that prevent families from securing care, said officials from the WHO’s Western Pacific regional office, during a meeting in New Caledonia.

India and China, however, account for the largest number of under-five child mortality rates in the region, India having some 2.5 million child deaths annually, while China accounts for another 730,000 deaths annually, according to the U.N.

According to Kim, the current pace of development may ensure the region meets the MDGs in universal primary education and the fight against HIV/AIDS, in some quarters.

Kim indicated that a change of heart was needed within the region so that nations on course to meet MDGs may help least developed countries. ”We must generate more resources within the region. Better-off countries must assist or invest in worst-off countries”.

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