600 million Asians live on $1 a day

Although Asia has achieved unprecedented economic growth in the last three decades, hunger and poverty persist, with 600 million people living on less than $1 (euro 0.72) a day, the Asian Development Bank said Thursday.

New approaches are needed to uplift the region’s poorest, who are concentrated in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihood, the bank said in a statement at the start of a two-day conference organized with the International Food Policy Research Institute.

“Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, but millions more remain, particularly in rural areas,” said Joachim von Braun, director general of the research institute.

About 600 million people, or 15 percent of Asia’s 4 billion population, still live on the poverty line, or on $1 a day, the bank said.

“New approaches to promote agricultural and rural growth, along with innovative social protection measures, are needed to help the poor who have been left behind,” von Braun said.

By 2015, the region will still be home to half the world’s poor, and best projections indicate that three-quarters of them will live in rural areas. At the same time, Asia is projected to contribute nearly half the world’s gross domestic product, the ADB said. – AP