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Rural poverty in Oceania

Almost two thirds of the world's population lives in Asia. Some 4 billion people are scattered throughout rural areas or crowded into towns and cities on a land area of almost 45 million km2, roughly 17 per cent of the world’s surface. The region has a highly varied range of climatic and agro-ecological zones. Large areas have been affected by degradation over the past 50 years. Drier areas are particularly vulnerable, and 39 per cent of the region’s population lives in areas prone to drought and desertification.

Poverty in Asia is a massive problem. Reducing poverty for huge numbers of poor people there is crucial to achieving the primary Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015. More than two thirds of the world’s poor people live in Asia, and nearly half of them are in Southern Asia.

Poverty is basically a rural problem in Asia: In the major countries, 80 to 90 per cent of poor people live in rural areas. While Eastern Asia and South-Eastern Asia have made impressive progress in reducing rural poverty over the past three decades, progress has been limited in Southern Asia. And the tsunami that recently struck the region will be taking a toll for years to come in Indonesia, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Despite wide-ranging diversities in the region, many poor rural people in Asia share a number of economic, demographic and social characteristics, the most common of which is landlessness or limited access to land. Poor rural households tend to have larger families, less education and higher underemployment. They also lack basic amenities such as a safe water supply, sanitation and electricity. Their access to credit, equipment and technology is severely limited. Other constraints – including the lack of market information, business and negotiating experience and collective organizations – deprive them of the power to compete on equal terms in the marketplace.

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Eastern Asia

Eastern Asia has been at the center of what has been called an “economic miracle”. In the last three decades, poverty in the region has been reduced by about two thirds. Gross domestic product has been growing by 7 to 10 per cent each year and gross national income by about 7 per cent each year. Agricultural growth has contributed significantly to this economic upturn, especially in those countries where an egalitarian distribution of land took place, and where macroeconomic policies were stable and trade policies relatively open. China is an outstanding example.

South-Eastern Asia

Like Eastern Asia, South-Eastern Asia has also been the scene of a dramatic economic upturn. In the last three decades, poverty in the region has been reduced by about two thirds. Gross domestic product has been growing at the same rate as that of Eastern Asia and gross national income has been increasing by about 4.4 per cent. In Asia, and in South-Eastern Asia in particular, the ravages of HIV/AIDS are spreading at a faster pace than in Africa. Epidemiologists expect Asia to be the next epicentre of the pandemic. HIV/AIDS is increasingly affecting the rural poor, and the threat of this disease – if not checked – will weaken many of the gains made in reducing rural poverty. The recent tsunami struck hardest in South-Eastern Asia, killing untold thousands of people and destroying innumerable villages, fishing communities and already precarious livelihoods for years to come.

Southern Asia

Most of Southern Asia has been left behind in the overall economic upturn in Asia. In the past three decades, the economies of Southern Asia’s countries have grown by 4 to 6 per cent and the gross national income by only 1.4 per cent. Although poverty declined by one third, the incidence of poverty, in terms of the percentage of the population living below the government poverty line, is higher in Southern Asia than in any other region in the world except sub-Saharan Africa. Southern Asia continues to have strong gender inequalities, and women continue to suffer severe social deprivation. While the worldwide ratio of women to men is 106:100, in this region it is only 94:100.

Central Asia

Many countries in Central Asia have been going through periods of dramatic economic transition as they consolidate their independence. Governments have implemented structural adjustment programmes and privatization of the agricultural sector. Large state-run farm enterprises have been transformed into small, privately owned concerns. “New farmers” have limited knowledge of management practices and cultivation techniques, and have no capital to implement necessary innovations. Moreover, privatization efforts have largely neglected many remote mountainous areas, and poverty among mountain communities remains virtually unchanged. Herders and small farmers in these areas have few resources to work with, and the land is becoming increasingly degraded. Women are particularly affected, as many men go to urban areas in search of employment, leaving women with the entire burden of farm and family work.

Western Asia

Western Asia is characterized by a fragile agro-ecological base and persistently high population growth rates. In general, government policies and investments have favoured urban areas. Neglect of the rural sector has resulted in poor transport and social infrastructure, high rates of rural illiteracy, weak local institutions and migration of large numbers of rural youth to urban areas. Events in many countries have threatened poor people’s livelihoods and led to increased poverty rates – for example, a severe fiscal and monetary crisis in Turkey, political and security problems in Gaza and the West Bank, and a reduction in workers' remittances in Yemen after the Gulf War. Poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon, since 60 to 70 per cent of poor people live in rural areas. And income inequality seems to be growing in many countries of the region.

Turkey is the only country in the region where rural poverty has declined over the past ten years, although wide disparities of income persist among regions throughout the country. Incomes in the largely rural east, southeast and northeast and Black Sea region are 40 per cent lower than the national average. About 30 per cent of people in those areas live without certainty of being able to satisfy their basic needs.

In Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, rural poor people have been hit hard by the increased costs for energy such as fuel, electricity and gas. It is not only their incomes that suffer, but also the environment. Burning dung or fuel wood for heating wastes fertilizer or leads to deforestation. The introduction of fees for health care has dramatically reduced rural poor people’s access to health care services. Civil conflict and large refugee populations also tighten poverty’s hold on rural poor people.

Source: IFAD

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