millennium development goals 2007 update

7/29/2019 Millennium Development Goals 2007 Update

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Asia-PacificMDG Study Series

Promoting the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific:Meeting the Challenges of Poverty Reduction (2003)

A Future Within Reach: Reshaping Institutions in a Region of Disparities toMeet the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific (2005)

Asia Water Watch 2015: Are Countries in Asia on Track to Meet Target 10 of the Millennium Development Goals? (ADB, 2005)

Achieving the MDGs in Asia: Policies and Strategies for InstitutionalDevelopment in Population and Reproductive Health (UNFPA, 2005)

The Role of Population and Reproductive Health Policy in Reaching theMillennium Development Goals in East and South-East Asia (UNFPA, 2005)

Pursuing Gender Equality through the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific (ADB, 2006)

Achieving the MDGs in Asia: A Case for more Aid? (2006)

The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2006

Access to Basic Services for the Poor: The Importance of Good Governance (2007)

Achieving the Health Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific: Policies

and Actions within Health Systems and Beyond (2007)

The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007

Unless otherwise indicated, the studies in this series have been published by the ESCAP/ ADB/UNDP joint project on MDGs in Asia and the Pacific.



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Asia-Pacific MDG Study Series

The Millennium Development Goals:PROGRESS IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC 2007

2007



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ST/ESCAP/2465

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For further information on the materials contained in this document, please contact:

Mr. Pietro GennariDirector

Statistics DivisionUnited Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the PacificUnited Nations Building Rajadamnern Nok AvenueBangkok 10200, ThailandEmail: [email protected]

This report can be downloaded from the Millennium Development Goals Asia-Pacific website at http://www.mdgasiapacific.org Readers are encouraged to provide feedback by email: [email protected] or by using the readership survey

questionnaire available online.

The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not

imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the UnitedNations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, orconcerning the delimitation of its frontiers and boundaries. The views expressed in this publi-cation are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of theUnited Nations and the Asian Development Bank, its board of Directors, or the governmentsthey represent. This publication has been issued without formal editing. Mention of firmnames and commercial products does not imply endorsement of the United Nations.

Printed in BangkokOctober, 2007



vPreface

For the Millennium Development Goals 2007 is a critical year half way towards the target date of 2015. This is therefore a good point to take stock. Are we at least half way towards meeting the goals?This report addresses this question for the Asia-Pacific region, assessing how successful we have been inmoving towards each of the goals and their associated targets, and signalling what would be required toturn this historical moment into an historical opportunity to fulfil the spirit and the promises of the

Millennium Declaration.This update is the latest in a series of regional progress reports. It builds on earlier assessments: A

Future within Reach (2005) and The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific, 2006. Inaddition, this report has a special focus on disparities identifying some of the groups that are notsharing fully in national progress, and advocating for inclusive growth.

The report has been prepared on a tripartite basis between ESCAP, ADB and UNDP an initiativethat allows the agencies to speak with a common voice on the MDGs, helping to establish a consolidatedregional platform that can support clear and mutually consistent plans of action.

We hope that this systematic cross-regional view in this report will serve as a reference point allowing countries to compare their progress with other parts of the region, so that they, along withinternational, regional and national organizations, can then look behind the numbers, identifying the causesof uneven progress, both between and within countries, and exploring the necessary institutional andpolicy changes.

As this report shows, some of the poorest countries in the region have been able to make significantadvances, even in the most difficult circumstances. With sufficient determination and commitment, theseexperiences can be replicated across all countries and across all the goals so that everyone benefits fromMDG progress ensuring that no-one is left behind.



Acknowledgement

The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007 is a joint effort by the UnitedNations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), the Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The preparationof the report was led by Haishan Fu (ESCAP), Shiladitya Chatterjee (ADB) and Omar Noman(UNDP) who together provided overall direction and coordination.

The ESCAP team that prepared this publication includes Pietro Gennari (Director, StatisticsDivision), Haishan Fu (Project leader), Jan Smit (Advisor), Peter Stalker (Editor), LaksanawadeeKlawploadtook (Lay-out design); research and statistics group consisting Sara Duerto, Julie Gotoh,Eric Hermouet, Wei Liu, Andres Montes, Christian Stoff and Yichun Wang with valuable assistancefrom Daniel Clarke, Margarita Guerrero, Supharat Kaewkhonkaen, Minyoung Kim, Nixie Mabanag,

Fabio Pinna, Panpaka Supakalin and Ilpo Survo.The ESCAP/ADB/UNDP partnership gratefully acknowledges substantive inputs received

from Herve Berger, Tiziana Bonapace, Jorge Carrillo, Daewon Choi, Edgar Dante, Vanessa Griffen, Aynul Hassan, Masakazu Ichimura, Ritu Kumar, Hak-Fan Lau, Mia Mikic, Syed A.M. Nuruzzaman, Atsuko Okuda, Ying Qiu, Hitomi Rankine, Ravi Ratnayake, Hiren Sarkar, Marie Sicat, Shamika N.Sirimanne, Vanessa Steinmayer, Sirinvas Tata, Le Huu Ti, Kioe Sheng Yap, and Mann Yari fromESCAP; Armin Bauer, J. Salcedo Cain, Michelle Domingo, Rana Hasan, Jacques Jeugmans, DavidMcCauley, Francesco Tornieri and Kallidaikurichi Easwaran Seetharam from ADB; Patricia Alexander, Ricardo Fuentes, Claes Johansson, Christopher Kuonqui, B. Murali and Longyun Peng from UNDP; Anna Azaryeva, Attila Hancioglu and Bastiaan vant Hoff from UNICEF; RyceChanchai from the Millennium Campaign; Noureddine Abderrahim, Bridgette James, Guillermo

Rojas, and Shea.O. Rustein from Measure DHS, Macro International Inc.; Ericka Rascon fromIADB; and Mabel Andalon from Cornell University.

The partnership also wishes to thank the following people who provided special assistance with the production of regional aggregates for the MDG indicators and other related data issues: Valentina Stoevska from ILO; Gerald Haberkorn from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community;Karen Stanecki and Sherrie Kelly from UNAIDS; Said Belkachla, Weixin Lu and Jose Pessoa fromUNESCO Institute for Statistics; Xiadong Cal, Me Me Khine, Nyein Nyein Lwin, Maryanne Neilland Tessa Wardlaw from UNICEF; Francesca Coullare, Joanna Labos and Francesca Perucci fromUNSD; Carla AbouZahr, Ties Boerma, Katherine Floyd, Lale Say and Suzanne Scheele from WHO;Shaohua Chen, William Prince, Changqing Sun, Eric Swanson and Adam Wagstaff from WorldBank; and Gareth Jones, an independent consultant.

Additional assistance was provided by Krisana Boonpriroje, Nobuko Kajiura, lmae Ann Mojado, Aphitchaya Nguanbanchong, Varaphorn Prapatsakdi, and Prapapan Treeratpituk.



Table of contents

Preface

Acknowledgement

Table of contents

Executive Summary

Part 1: MDG progress in Asia and the Pacific

A regional snapshotThe scale of the opportunity Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Reduce extreme poverty by half Reduce hunger by half Goal 2 Achieve universal primary educationGoal 3 Promote gender equality and empower womenGoal 4 Reduce child mortality Goal 5 Improve maternal healthGoal 6 Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV and AIDSHalt and begin to reverse the spread of malaria and other diseases

Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability Halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking waterHalve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation

From red to greenPart 2: Beyond national averages

Growing inequality Surviving the first five yearsEnsuring that children are well nourishedThe drive for clean water Access to improved sanitation

Epilogue: Towards a global partnership

Bibliography

Index to MDG indicators

MDG Indicator tablesTechnical note

MDG progress classificationRegional and country group aggregates Within country disparities

Classification of countries

Key to country codes

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910121314

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1920

202124252628

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31

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52535455

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Tables

1-1 Country groups on and off track for the MDGs1-2 Maternal mortality ratio and births attended by skilled personnel1-3 Malaria prevention and treatment, percentage of under-five children1-4 Proportion of urban population living in slums, 10 highest

2-1 $1/day poverty rates, 1990s-2000s A Countries on and off track for the MDGsB Data by region and country group

Figures

1-1 People deprived in Asia-Pacific, selected indicators, 1990 and latest year1-2 Progress and number of people affected, by region, 1990 and latest year1-3a Population living on less than $1/day, by region and country group, 20041-3b Population living on less than $1/day, by country, latest year1-4a Under-five children underweight, by region and country group, 20051-4b Under-five children underweight, by country, latest year1-5a Primary enrolment, by region and country group, 20051-5b Primary enrolment, by country, latest year1-6a Under-five mortality, by region and country group, 20051-6b Under-five mortality, by country, latest year1-7 Maternal mortality, 20001-8 People living with HIV, 15-49 years old, 20051-9a Tuberculosis prevalence, by region and country group, 20051-9b Tuberculosis prevalence, by country, latest year1-10a Population with access to improved water sources, rural, by region and country group, 20041-10b Population with access to improved water sources, urban, by region and country group, 20041-10c Population with access to improved water sources, urban, by country, latest year1-11a Population with access to basic sanitation, rural, by region and country group, 2004

1-11b Population with access to basic sanitation, rural, by country, latest year2-1 Changes in the Gini Index, 1990s-2000s2-2 Under-five mortality rates, urban and rural trends2-3 Under-five mortality rate by wealth quintile and the ratio of lowest to highest quintile, latest year2-4 The Philippines, under-five mortality rates by residence and wealth quintile, 20032-5 Proportion of underweight children under-five by wealth quintile, latest year2-6 India, underweight children under-five, by residence and wealth quintile, 19992-7 Access to improved water sources, between 1990 and 2004, by residence2-8 Cambodia, access to improved water sources, by residence and wealth quintile, 20002-9 Access to improved sanitation, urban and rural, 20042-10 Access to improved sanitation, rural areas, by wealth quintile, latest year

2-11 Indonesia, access to improved sanitation, by residence and wealth quintile, 2003

Boxes

1-1 The need for complete and consistent data1-2 Timor-Leste: towards education for all1-3 Improving data on gender1-4 Afghanistan: progress against all odds1-5 The rise in environmental poverty 1-6 The rights to safe water and basic sanitation2-1 Health disparities in China

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E x e c u

t i v e S u m m a r y

Executive summary

This report on progress towards the MDGs in

Asia and the Pacific has two parts. Part 1 assesses whether countries are on or off track for the vari-ous indicators. Part 2 examines disparities within

countries. Overall, much of the news is good. Asiaand the Pacific is one of the worlds most dynamicregions, and has been forging ahead on many of

the MDGs. The main conclusions of the reportare:

Extreme poverty The region as a whole is on

track to reach the target of reducing extreme pov-erty by half. China, the largest early achiever, hasbeen leading the way and a number of other coun-

tries have also hit the target already, but the Least

Developing Countries are making slow progress.

Children underweight On this indicator, the pic-ture is more mixed. A high number of countries

in South Asia and South-East Asia are advancing

too slowly.Primary education Here the situation is more

encouraging - the region as a whole is on track toachieve the goal. Although South Asia without In-dia is making slow progress, it will nevertheless

come quite close to it by 2015.Gender parity in primary enrolment This is an-

other relatively successful area: the region is well

on its way towards gender parity at primary andsecondary levels and in some cases girls are ahead

of boys.

Under-five mortality Many more children aresurviving beyond their fifth birthday, and South-East Asia as a whole is on track, though some coun-

tries are advancing too slowly and there are many

CIS countries of concern.HIV and AIDS There has been progress in

many countries, but a number in North and Cen-tral Asia are regressing. Around 6 million peopleare living with HIV, which represents over a mil-

lion of new infections over the past two years.Tuberculosis The prevalence and death rates

of TB have been falling across the region but ris-

ing throughout the CIS countries.

Deforestation Many countries are still losing forest cover at alarming rates, particularly the leastdeveloped countries in South-East Asia and the

Pacific this and rising energy use are also con-tributing to higher emissions of carbon dioxide.

Water and sanitation The region is making

slow progress in improving water supplies in ur-ban areas, but doing better in rural areas due

largely to rapid progress in South Asia. For sanita-

tion, coverage in most countries lags behind thatfor water, particularly in rural areas.

Since this region is home to 61 per cent of

world population the number of those affected is

often large. So along with headline trends it is also

useful to consider some headline numbers. For ex-ample, Asia and the Pacific accounts for 75 per

cent of the worlds rural population and 63 per

cent of the urban population who do not haveaccess to safe sanitation 1.9 billion in total. We

also have quite high shares of people suffering from TB and of underweight children. In addi-tion despite the regions success in reducing pov-

erty we still have 641 million people living on lessthan $1 per day.

The region therefore still faces quite a chal-

lenge. Most of the developing countries can pointto success in some of the goals, but none is on

course to achieve all of them. Of even greater

concern, the Asia-Pacific region also includes anumber of countries that on present trends arelikely to miss many, even most, of the MDGs.

Those with the greatest difficulties are often the

Least Developed Countries and some of the Land-locked Developing Countries and Small Island

Developing States.Part 2 of the report looks at trends in intra-

country disparities. One of the most striking de-

velopments it notes is the rise in income inequality:in the past decade or so, out of 20 countries in theregion, 14 saw inequality rise, while only six saw it



P r o gr e s s i n

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fall.

This pattern is also reflected in unevenprogress towards a number of the MDG goals.The chances of children surviving beyond their fifth

birthday, for example, differ significantly accord-

ing to which part of a country they are born inand to what type of household. Under-five mor-

tality rates are typically far higher in rural than inurban areas, often by over 50 per cent, and theserural-urban gaps have persisted. Moreover in both

rural and urban areas, the children least likely tosurvive are those in the poorest households. Thepoorest 20 per cent of households typically ac-

count for considerably more than 20 per cent of acountrys child deaths for some countries, around

30 per cent. It is possible in some countries to com-

bine these data revealing that the poorest ruralquintile can be four times more likely to die thanthose in the richest urban quintile. A similar pattern

is evident for under-five nutrition. Children in the

rural areas, and those in the poorest households,are twice as likely to be underweight as those in

the urban areas or in the richest households.Households in rural areas are also more de-

prived when it comes to supplies of safe water. In

urban areas, coverage is often above 90 per cent,

but rural areas often lag by 10 to 20 percentage

points. Nevertheless there are still serious prob-lems for urban households as a large influx of migrants to cities has caused urban coverage to

fall. For basic sanitation, for which provision is

lower than that for safe water, the rural-urban gapscan be wider, with rural coverage sometime less

than half that in urban areas. Even so there canalso be stark contrast within urban areas with very low sanitation coverage in the poorest districts.

In the epilogue the report considers the eighthMillennium Development Goal which seeks tobuild a global partnership for development,

complementing the efforts of national govern-ments for mobilizing resources by providing more

equitable access to opportunities for trade, growth

and development. It emphasizes in particular the value of such a partnership for supporting theregions LDCs.

The report concludes by pointing out that the

Asia-Pacific region has been setting the pace forthe developing world, particularly in economic

growth but that it has now the opportunity tofocus again on equity, and extend the benefits of

rapid economic and social development to all its

people.



P A R T 1

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p r o g r e s s i n A s i a a n d t h e P a c i f i c

3

PART 1

MDG progress in Asia andthe Pacific

This first part of the report presents progressacross the region identifying which coun-tries are on or off track for specific MDG tar-gets. Across such a vast and diverse regionthe picture is inevitably mixed so the overallstory is one of uneven development. As thesecond part of the report will show, this pat-tern of disparities is also visible within coun-tries. Hundreds of millions of people are fail-ing to share in the progress of the worlds

most dynamic region.

This report uses the latest data from the Mil-

lennium Indicators Database to assess recent trends,making simple projections to assess whether coun-

tries are on or off track for various MDG targets.This projection, based on the assumption of no

change in circumstances or policies, presents only one of the possible scenarios. The challenge formany countries is to break away from the pre-

dicted path so as to meet the targets by 2015.The same system for classifying achievement

in earlier reports is applied. For each indicator, on

the basis of the trend since 1990 the report placescountries or country groups into one of four cat-

egories:

Early achiever : Already achieved the 2015target target

On track: Expected to meet the target by 2015Off trackSlow : Expected to meet the target,

but after 2015Off trackNo progress/regressing : Stagnating or

slipping backwardsFor convenience the overall picture across the

region is summarized for a selection of indicators

by country group in Table 1-1 and by country inTable A (page 33). This is inevitably a partial per-spective because for most of the 48 MDG indica-

tors there are serious data limitations (Box 1-1).

For some indicators, such as the primary enrol-

ment rate, most countries offer sufficient data forassessing trends and there is a numerical targetagainst which to measure progress, so all four sym-

bols are possible. For other indicators, the situa-tion may differ. In the case of TB prevalence, forexample, for which the target is to halt and to be-

gin to reverse the spread, only three of the foursymbols are applicable: if the prevalence is falling the country is an early achiever, if it is constant the

country is on track, if it is rising the country is off track. Other indicators had to be excluded from

this overall table, primarily because of a lack of

comparable cross-country data. For maternalmortality, for example, for which the target is toreduce the rate by three quarters there are currently

no internationally comparable trend data.

For the country group analysis one or morecountries will usually lack data for that indicator.

In these cases, regional averages have been esti-mated with the help of international agencies suchas the World Bank or by the ESCAP Statistics Di-

vision.

A regional snapshot

Tables 1-1 and Table A are thus a compromisebetween the ideal and the possible. For some im-

portant indicators, particularly in the Pacific, thereare many blank areas indicating a data vacuum.

Nevertheless the tables do give a useful overall im-pression. At first glance they are encouraging sincethey have more of the optimistic green symbolsthan the pessimistic red ones. Reading down the

columns, however, shows how the picture variesby indicator.

While Table 1-1 encapsulates some of the

regions overall progress, it does not give any senseof the human scale of the achievements, or theproblems. Since this region is home to more than

half the worlds people the number of those af-

fected can be very large. So along with headline

trends that emerge from these tables it is also use-ful to consider some headline numbers. These aresummarized in Figures 1-1 and 1-2, which show

target

but after 2015

slipping backwards



P r o gr e s s i n

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Note: Asia and the Pacific refers to the 55 deve loping mem bers and a ssoc iate m emb ers of ESCAP (see Cla ssification of c ountries, pa ge 55).

for various indicators the number of people af-

fected in each region and the changes since 1990.

The Asia-Pacific region has 61 per cent of

the world population but in some cases our share

of people deprived can be higher still. As Figure

1-1 shows, one of the most widespread prob-

lems is evidently in sanitation: Asia and the Pacificaccounts for 75 per cent of the world’s rural popu-

lation and 63 per cent of the urban population

who do not have access to basic sanitation – 1.9

billion in total. We also have high shares of people

suffering from TB and of underweight children.

In addition, despite the region’s success in reduc-

ing poverty we still have 641 million people living

on less than $1 per day.

The sc a le ofthe opportunity

While the numbers of people deprived look daunt-

ing they also give an indication of what the region

has to gain by intensifying its efforts to reach the

MDGs. We have an enormous opportunity to im-

prove the well-being of many millions of people

and also make economic gains: it has been esti-

mated, for example, that persistent gender inequality

is costing the region $58 to $77 billion a year

(ESCAP, 2007).If the countries that are currently off-track –

either slow or regressing – were to alter their course

to a new trajectory that would enable them to meet

the target in 2015, this would mean:

• 196 million more people would be lifted

out of poverty

• 23 million more children would no longer

suffer from hunger

• Close to one million more children would

survive beyond their fifth birthday

• Four million more children would get a ba-

sic education

Tab le 1-1Country groups on and off track for the MDGs

Figure 1-1People deprived in Asia-Pacific, selected indicators, 1990and latest year

Note: The la test years are a s follow s: 2000 for materna l mo rtality; 2004 for $1/ da y pove rty, and a cc ess to water and sanitation; and 2005 for children un-derwe ight, primary enrolme nt, under 5 mortality, HIV prevalenc e and TBprevalence.



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Figure 1-2Progress and number of people affected, by region, 1990 and latest year

In these charts, the size of the bubbles represents the relative size of the population affected, while the colourscorrespond to those of the progress symbols. The sloping line divides the charts into two parts: above the line theindicators for each bubble have increased since 1990; below the line they have decreased. For latest year see Figure1-1.



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240 million more people in rural areas would

have access to improved sanitation 80 million more people living in cities wouldhave access to improved water supplies

How can Asia and the Pacific transform anhistoric opportunity into an historic achievement?

The answer has to be to focus on those countriesthat are moving too slowly or not making progress,

and within all countries to concentrate on fulfilling

the rights of the poorest and most marginalizedespecially women. The following sections highlightsome cross-country comparisons, goal by goal,

though paying particular attention to the goals for

which the region is performing less well.In each case we compare the current position

of Asia and the Pacific with two other developing regions, Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-

Box 1-1The need for complete and consistent data

This assessment of country and regional progress to-

wards the MDGs is based on data from the global Mil-

lennium Indicators Database, maintained by the United

Nations Statistics Division1. The data are prepared by

the responsible international agencies, relying largely

on official statistics collected through censuses, surveys

and administrative records by national statistical agen-

cies in some cases supplemented by surveys spon-

sored by international agencies, such as the Demo-

graphic and Health Surveys and the Multiple Indictor

Cluster Surveys (United Nations, 2007).

Agencies are continually improving their method-

ologies and revising and adding to the data. Since the

2005 MDG update ten more countries have added at

least one data point for indicators such as the propor-

tion of the population undernourished and the rate of

youth unemployment. For this report ten more coun-

tries also have trend data for the ratio of female to

male enrolment in primary and secondary education

and 19 have trend data for the proportion of children in

primary school reaching grade 5. At the same time,

however, some revisions have caused a reduction indata points as these have subsequently been deemed

unreliable or not internationally comparable2.

More data should become available later this

year. New estimates for infant and child mortality will

come from the third round of MICS undertaken in

2005. Similarly there will be new estimates for maternal

mortality for 2005 which could be combined with the

data for 2000 to allow an assessment of recent trends.

For this report, however, there are still large data

gaps. For example, currently only 25 countries in the

region have data on the $1-a-day poverty indicator,

and none provide data that can be used for assessing

cross-country trends in maternal mortality.

While data availability varies across countries and

indicators, some of the greatest problems are in the

poorest countries and small island states with weak

statistical systems that may not be able to produce

reliable and timely data even for the most basic indi-cators. As a result, these countries are often absent

from the international data series and cannot there-

fore be covered in this regional progress assessment.

The same is often true for countries that have emergedonly recently from war and civil strife, such as Afghani-

stan, Timor-Leste and parts of Central Asia.It is even more difficult to obtain data on inequal-

ity within countries and especially data that can also

be used for cross-country comparisons. For the inequal-

ity analysis in the second part of this report we have

relied on Demographic and Health Surveys for 13 coun-

tries which have been carried out since 1995. Of these,

six countries have data from two or more surveys towhich a standard methodology can be applied to

examine trends in inequalities in child health and in

access to water and sanitation. These surveys provide

rich information, though they are infrequent and fail to

cover some of the most vulnerable groups, such as

communities in Nepal and Sri Lanka affected by con-

flicts.To ensure comparability across countries a re-

gional report has to use international data series. In

principle these should match the national official statis-

tics from which they are largely derived. Nevertheless

there can be inconsistencies. These may happen, for example, when national definitions for indicators differ

from international data requiring international agen-

cies to adjust the data to ensure comparability across

countries. Or perhaps the countries do not produce

data on a particular indicator so the agencies have to

estimate the missing values. Another possibility is that

countries have new data they have not made avail-able to international agencies. Whatever their cause,

data inconsistencies can raise many questions, lead to

serious political concerns and hamper policy dialogue.

This underlines the importance of promoting interna-

tional statistical standards, improving coordination

within national statistical systems as well as betweennational and international data agencies.

ESCAP, ADB and UNDP together with other part-

ners are supporting countries in their efforts to build

capacity in both the production and use of statistics.

Activities include promoting national strategic planning

for statistical development, supporting the 2010 roundof population and housing censuses, facilitating the use

and dissemination of microdata, and improving admin-

istrative data systems.

1 http://mdgs.un.org/. Data obtained for this report are as of 27 August2007.2 For example, a $1/day poverty estimate of 47.8% for 1991 for Pakistan

was included in the Millennium Indicators Database in 2006 but wassubsequently dropped. This data revision led to the difference, betweenthis and last years MDG progress report (ESCAP, 2006), in the assess-ment of Pakistans progress towards poverty reduction.

Data availability among 55 Asia-Pacific developing

countries, 1990-2005

Note: Trend data refer to two data points, three years apart, over 1990-2005.



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7

Saharan Africa. Then we look at various country

groupings within the Asia-Pacific region. Becauseour two most populous countries, China and In-dia, tend to sway the overall averages we show

data on these separately while also considering two

subtraction groupings: Asia and the Pacific with-out China and India, and South Asia without In-

dia. The other groupings are South-East Asia, thePacific Islands, the Commonwealth of Indepen-dent States (CIS) countries in Asia, and the regions

Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

Goal 1Eradicate extremepoverty and hunger

This goal has two main components: the first is

concerned with income poverty, the second with

hunger and malnutrition.

Reduce extreme povertyby half

Income poverty is one of the regions success sto-ries. Based on the $1-a-day measure the region as

a whole is on track, due in part to rapid economicgrowth in many countries, most recently in China:in 1990 one person in three in China lived in pov-erty while today the number is below one in ten.

As indicated in Figure 1-3a, our average poverty rate, at around 17 per cent, is higher than in Latin

America and the Caribbean, but we are making

faster progress hence the green triangle. Thelength of the bar indicates the number of peopleaffected, which at 641 million is more than half

the worlds extreme poor. Of the country groups,

South-East Asia too is doing well. The picture isless positive for the regions LDCs for which the

poverty rate at 34 per cent is not far from that of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Figure 1-3b highlights the position of selected

individual countries. The vertical axis shows the

Figure 1-3aPopulation living on less than $1 per day, by region andcountry group, 2004

Figure 1-3bPopulation living on less than $1 per day, by country, latest

year

Note on cut-offs: In the case of Turkey (TR) for example, the 1990 starting point was 2.4 per cent and the target was to half t his by 2015. But countries are consideredto have achieved the target if they have reduced extreme poverty to below 5 per cent. Because Turkey was already below this cut-off point it thus immediately becamean early achiever. By its own standards, however, it still has some distance to travel.Note on data: For each bar chart the actual data are listed in Table B on page 34. For the distance travelled charts, the underlying data for each country are in Table

A (page 33) and the indicator tables at the end of the report.

current level of poverty, while the horizontal axis

indicates the proportion of distance already trav-elled towards the target, with the starting point and

the target serving as the limits of the yellow zone.Since there is not enough room to put the full name,

each country is identified by its two-letter internetcountry code, a list of which you will find on page

56. The Philippines (PH) for example, had a 1991

poverty rate of 19.8 per cent and a target of 9.9per cent. Since its latest value for 2003 is 14.8 per



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cent it has travelled half the distance towards the

target over the period, and as the symbol indi-cates, it is moving slowly towards the target but will come very close to it by 2015. India (IN), on

the other hand, with a 2004 poverty rate of 34 per

cent has travelled less than half the distance to its2015 target, though since Indias subsequent eco-

nomic growth has been more rapid the country could see a faster decline in poverty. Sri Lanka (LK), with one of the lowest poverty rates in South Asia,

has experienced an increase. Of the countries onthis figure the one with the greatest difficulties isBangladesh (BD) whose poverty rate is high and

rising.The most successful countries, the early achiev-

ers included here, are largely clustered to the bot-

tom right of the figure, showing not just that they have achieved low rates of poverty but that they have overachieved their targets. It is however, also

possible for an early achiever to fall within the yel-

low zone, indicating that it still has some distanceto travel. This is related to the cut-off points for

each indicator and can happen for countries that were starting out at quite good levels (see Techni-

cal note, page 52 and the note to Figure 1-3b).

The main reason for applying a cut-off is to avoidlabelling countries as regressing when they may only be fluctuating slightly at high levels of achieve-

ment.In order to produce visually consistent charts,

the range for distance travelled is limited to -50

per cent to +150 per cent. Countries that fall be-yond those ranges are placed at the -50 or +150position, which in this case accounts for the col-

umn of countries at -50 per cent. In the case of

Armenia (AM), for example, the actual value is179 per cent.

Reduce hunger by half

The other indicators for poverty relate to hungerand nutrition. For the purposes of the cross-re-

gional comparison this report uses the proportionof under-five children who are underweight who weigh less than they should for their age. Com-

pared with the success in income poverty the situ-

ation here is almost the reverse. This is one of theregions greatest failures 28 per cent of our un-

der-five children are underweight and we are off-target for 2015 (Figure 1-4a). Indeed Asia and thePacific accounts for around 65 per cent of the

worlds underweight children. This high level is likely

to be linked to the poor health and nutrition of women that causes children to be born under-

weight, as well as to unsafe water supplies and thedebilitating effects of infectious diseases, such as

diarrhoea and pneumonia, combined with inad-

equate care.

The most severe problems are evidently inSouth Asia. In India (IN) close to half of under-

five children are underweight. As is shown in Fig-ure 1-4b, Pakistan (PK) and Bangladesh (BD) also

have high levels: both are off track though Paki-stan more so than Bangladesh. The rates are high

even in South-East Asia, at 28 per cent, which isclose to the level of Sub-Saharan Africa. This ap-

pears surprising given the subregions considerablesuccess in reducing income poverty. Indonesia (ID),

Figure 1-4bUnder-five children underweight, by country, latest year

Figure 1-4aUnder-five children underweight, by region and countrygroup, 2005

China

Asia Pacific

w/o China & India

South•East Asia

South Asia

(excl. India)

LDC Asia Pacific

India

Latin America

& Caribbean

Asia Pacific

Sub•Saharan

Africa

0 20 40 60 80

0 9 18 26 35 44

Millions (bars)

Prevalence, % (markers)

Distance travelled (%)

Prevalence,%

10

20

30

40

50-

-50 0 50 100 150

Regional average

Cut off

AF

AM

BD

KH

CN

IN

ID

KP

LA

MY

MV

MN

MM

PK

PH

TR

VN



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Ratio

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

-50 0 50 100 150

Regional average

Cut off

AM

AZ

BD,BN

* KH, KI, KR, KZ, WS

HK

MO

FJ

GE

IN

ID

IR

LA

KGMY

MV

MN

MM

NP

PK

PH

RUTH

TOTJ,

TR

VN

VU

*

South Asia

(excl. India)

Asia Pacificw/o China & India

LDC Asia Pacific

CIS Asia

South•East Asia

India

China

Sub•Saharan

Africa

Asia Pacific

Latin America

& Caribbean

0 10 20 30

0 20 39 59 78 98

Millions out of school (bars)

Ratio (markers)

for example, is an early achiever on poverty but

for this indicator is regressing. The main successstory is China (CN) which has reduced its level farbelow the regional average, and indeed in some

cities, as discussed in the second part of this re-

Goal 2Achieve universalprimary education

All countries in the region give a high priority to

education. For the purpose of this cross-regionalcomparison, this report focuses on net primary enrolment.

To achieve this goal, countries have to enrol

children in school and then ensure that they com-plete the full course of schooling. On this basis,

the Asia-Pacific region has done quite well, enroll-ing nearly 94 per cent of school-age children still

Figure 1-5aPrimary enrolment, by region and country group, 2005

Figure 1-5bPrimary enrolment, by country, latest year

Note: China does not have a progress symbol as there are no trend data.

Box 1-2Timor-Leste: towards education for all

With almost half its population under 16 years of age,

this young nation faces a daunting task in achievingprimary education for all. Its education statistics have

not made it into the international series so they have

not been included in this report. However, a recent

World Bank country study has concluded that between

1999 and 2003, the net primary enrolment ratio increased

from 51 to 75 per cent, and the net junior secondary

school enrolment ratio increased from 24 to 30 per cent.This has been achieved in part by reducing the costs of

schooling, which has helped narrow the gap between

rich and poor, though there is still a significant disparity:

among the richest quintile only 6 per cent of children

are out of school, while for the poorest quintile the

proportion is 29 per cent.

Like many other LDCs in the region, Timor-Leste

has a long way to go to achieve universal primaryenrolment and improve the quality of education. Rec-

ognizing this, the government has formulated a Na-

tional Development Plan for Education which sets out

ambitious goals for 2020, including a rapid expansion

of primary school enrolment, particularly for girls and

for children from poor rural households.

Source: Based on World Bank (2004).

port, the rate is close to zero. Malaysia (MY) too,

unlike other countries in South-East Asia, has beenreducing its underweight proportion quite rapidly from 23 per cent in 1993 to around 11 per cent

in 2003.

behind Latin America and the Caribbean, which with

a 97 per cent rate counts as an early achiever, butsome way ahead of Sub-Saharan Africas 70 per cent.Nevertheless this region still accounts for one in three

of the worlds children out of school.

As is evident from Figures 1-5a and 1-5b oneof the most significant contributions is from India whose rate of 95 per cent helps drive up the regional

average. On the other hand, the rate for South Asia

without India is low, despite the impressive achieve-ments of Bangladesh (BD). Pakistan (PK) at a 68 per

cent enrolment ratio is moving slowly toward its tar-get, while the Maldives (MV), at 80 per cent, is re-gressing.



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Goal 3Promote genderequality and em powerwomen

The assessment of this goal is based on a fairly

narrow range of indicators (Box 1-3). Those with

defined targets are concerned with education – the

aim is to achieve gender parity at all levels. For thisindicator, the region as a whole is doing well at the

primary and secondary levels: Bangladesh is an early

achiever for both as is China, Georgia, Kazakhstan

and Kyrgyzstan. Indeed the countries of the re-

gion are generally so close to gender parity that this

indicator is difficult to represent in diagrams de-

signed to highlight differences. Nevertheless there

are still wide gender gaps in some countries, such

as Pakistan, which is off track for this goal with a

ratio of girls’ to boys’ secondary enrolment at 0.7.

Tajikistan though at a higher level, is regressing. In

Afghanistan, the ratio is even lower at 0.3, though

the country is making great efforts in very difficult

circumstances (Box 1-4).

Along with the rise in enrolment in primary

education there have also been reductions in the

gap in literacy between men and women. More of

this generation of girls are going to school so their

rates are likely to be close to those of boys. For

those women who missed this opportunity, how-

ever, the disadvantage will be greater. In Bangladesh

in 2002, for example, for the 15-19 age group the

gap in literacy rates for men and women was sevenpercentage points, while for the 20-24 age group it

was 16 percentage points (United Nations, 2005).

Women are still at a significant disadvantage

in tertiary education, and in this case, the region is

far from achieving gender parity. Not all countries

provide the relevant data but, of the 43 that do,

only in 21 countries are there equal numbers of

young women and young men at higher levels of

education. In Nepal, for example, the ratio of girls

to boys in primary education in 2006 was 1.0, but

in tertiary education it was only 0.4, while in

Bangladesh the figures were 1.0 and 0.5 respec-tively. Girls may be dropping out of school, for

example, because their families need them to work

and carry out household chores, including fetch-

ing water. Adolescent girls will also be discour-

aged by inadequate school sanitation facilities, and

some may have had to leave school because of

early marriage.

Th e se co nd MDG gende r in di ca to r is

women’s share of paid non-agricultural employ-

ment. On this basis, some countries in the region

have done well. Women make up around half the

non-agricultural workforce in North and Central

Asia as well as in several countries in South-East

Asia, including Thailand and Viet Nam. Apart from

Sri Lanka, for example, where the proportion is

40 per cent, across South Asia the figure is generally

lower: in India 18 per cent, Nepal 15 per cent; and

in Pakistan only 10 per cent.

The third gender indicator is the proportion

of women in national parliaments. Globally the

proportion in single or lower houses of parlia-

ment tends to be quite low, around only 17 per

cent. Some countries in the region have gone be-yond this – achieving more than one-quarter, for

example, in Afghanistan, Timor-Leste and Viet

South-East Asia as a whole – at 94 per cent –

has achieved high primary enrolment. Within this

subregion, Cambodia (KH) is doing well and is an

early achiever. Timor-Leste, though not included

in this assessment, has also been making progress

(Box 1-2). Others such as Myanmar (MM), the Phil-ippines (PH) and Viet Nam (VN) achieved rela-

tively high level but have made little further progress

since early 1990s or are regressing. On the other

hand many countries in the Pacific have done well:

Fiji (FJ), Kiribati (KI), Samoa (WS), Tonga (TO)

and Vanuatu (VU) are all early achievers with cur-

rent primary enrolment rates of over 95 per cent.

Although most children are now enrolling in

primary school, a significant proportion is drop-

ping out. While in the CIS around 96 per cent of

enrolled children reach grade 5, in a number of

countries elsewhere in the Asia and Pacific region,

the proportion is far lower: in Bangladesh, 65 per

cent; in Cambodia, 57 per cent; in India, 73 per

cent; in Lao PDR, 63 per cent; in Myanmar 70 per

cent; in Nauru, 25 per cent; in Nepal, 79 per cent;in Pakistan, 70 per cent; in Papua New Guinea, 58

per cent; and in the Philippines, 72 per cent.

Some children will be dropping out for rea-

sons of poverty, but others may be rejecting the

education on offer, with underqualified teachers, a

lack of textbooks or equipment, or poorly main-

tained buildings. Some parents may also be con-

cerned about inadequate sanitation facilities par-

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Nam – but in other countries, the rates are sur-

prisingly low, even for countries like India and Sri

Lanka that have had women presidents and prime

ministers. Nevertheless some countries, such as Af-

ghanistan and Pakistan, have taken measures to im-

prove women’s representation by reserving seats for

women in parliament, for example, or other forms

of affirmative action such as indicating that party lists

should have a certain proportion of women.

Box 1-4Afghanistan: progress against all odds

Because of a lack of data, Afghanistan cannot be

included in the assessments for a number of impor-tant indicators, though the scant data available re-

veal the extent of human deprivation: over the pe-

riod 1990-2004 its under-five mortality rate declined

only from 260 to 257 per 1,000 live births. This is the

third highest rat e in the wo rld, a fter Sierra Leone an dAngola. Its maternal mortality ratio, at an estimated

1,900 per 100,000 live births, is 2.6 times the ratio for

Nep al, an d 43 times the ratio fo r Tha ilan d. Its yout h

literacy rate, at 34 per cent for 2004, is the lowest in

the region, almost half that of Bangladesh.Nevertheless, against all the odds, Afghanistan

is making respectable progress in some priority ar-

eas. It is rebuilding the educational system, restoring

hea lth and sanitation fa cilities, enha ncing ad ministra-

tive capacity, and improving basic infrastructure. Ithas red uce d the p roportion of und er-five c hildren un-

derweight to 40 per cent. It has raised the measles

immunization coverage among one year-olds from

20 per c ent in 1990 to 64 pe r ce nt in 2005 – overtaking

Lao PDR. There ha ve a lso b ee n ac hievem ents in ge n-

der equality and women’s empowerment: girls’ ac-cess to education is slowly improving, and women’s

political participation has been impressive: between1990 and 2004 women’s share of seats in parliament

rose from 4 to 27 per cent, the highest proportion in

the region, along with Viet Nam.

Most impressive is the progress in water and

sanitation: between 1990 and 2004, the proportion

of people with access to improved drinking water

sources increased in rural areas from 3 to 31 per cent

and in urba n area s from 10 to 63 per ce nt. The p ropo r-tion of p eop le in rural a reas with ac ce ss to imp roved

sanitation facilities increased from 2 to 29 per cent

and in urban areas from 7 to 49 per cent. As a result,

Afgha nistan is well on trac k to a chieve the M DG sani-

tation targets.Afghanistan will clearly need ongoing interna-

tional support to achieve lasting human security andto move forward on a path of sustainable develop-

ment – progress that should also allow it to be in-

c luded mo re fully in future c ross-nationa l com pa risons.

Box 1-3Improving d ata on g ender

Monitoring the MDGs from a gender perspective ishampered by the limited number of indicators and a

shortage of d ata . The o nly indica tor under MDG3 on

gender equal i ty and women’s empowerment that

has a nume rica l target is pa rity in educ ational enrol-

ment – which d oes not take into ac co unt either qua l-ity or outcome. A second indicator is the proportion

of seats held by women in national parliaments –

though this does not measure their influence when

they g et the re. A third is wom en’ s share of pa id, non-

agricultural employment which is a valuable indica-tor of part icipation in the modern sectors of the

ec onom y. Howe ver, there is no indica tor that reflec ts

women’s unpaid economic activities, which are a

ma instay of the rural sec tor and o f the ca re econo my.

Even the da ta for MDG5 on mate rnal mortality, valu-

able as they are, do not capture broader aspects of

gender disparities in health.

We also need to disaggregate other MDG indi-

cators to explicitly assess progress toward gender

equality. MDG3 is not only important in its own right,

but also vital for achieving the other MDG goals, while

its realization in turn depends on the extent to which

ea ch o f the other go als ad dresses gend er-ba sed co n-

straints and issues (United Nations, 2005). However,

despite recent improvement, sex-disaggregated sta-tistics are often lacking even for basic indicators. Forexample, many countries in Asia still do not regularly

collect data on the labour force and its characteris-

tics or disseminate sex-disaggregated data accord-

ing to standard definitions that allow for cross-coun-

try analyses (United Nations, 2006). National govern-ments and international ag enc ies urgently need to

improve the quality and frequency with which they

co llec t a nd disseminate sex-disag grega ted da ta.

Beyond the technical shortcomings of the

MDG3 indicators, there is the issue of widening the

coverage of gender equal i ty and women’s em-po we rmen t. The UN Millenn ium Projec t Ta sk Forc e

on Educ ation a nd Gend er Equa lity is providing some

impetus. Consistent with the framework of CEDAW

and the Beijing Platform for Action, it has identified

seven strategic priorities: strengthening post-primaryeducation; guaranteeing sexual and reproductive

hea lth and right s; investing in infrastructu re to red uc e

wom en’ s and girl’s time burde ns; guarante eing prop -

erty and inher i tance r ights ; e l iminat ing gender

inequality in employment; increasing women’s shareof seats in national parliaments and local govern-

ment b od ies; and com bat ing v io lence aga inst

women (UNDP, 2005d).

How could progress on these priori t ies be

measured? For some topics, this could be achievedby rep lacing some indica tors with others that might

alrea dy ha ve be en c omp iled , such a s using the pe r-

centage of seats held by women in local govern-

ment bodies as a broader indicator of political par-

ticipation. O thers, such as those for emp loyment,

would involve improving labo ur force surveys. Indi-

cators related to property rights could come from

bett er use of a dm inistrative d ata . On the othe r hand,

for sexual and reproductive health and rights, aswell as for violence ag ainst wom en, we w ould need

new indica tors and metho do logies, several of whichhave been used by WHO and UNFPA in global stud-

ies on t hese top ics. Som e c ount ries in the reg ion

have also made efforts to move beyond the MDG

indicators to monitor national progress towards gen-

der eq ual ity and wome n’s empowerment (ADB,2006b).



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Figure 1-6bUnder-five mortality, by country, latest year

Figure 1-6aUnder-five mortality, by region and country group, 2005

Note: Many early ac hievers are in the ye llow zone, indicating m ore dis-

tance to travel. This is beca use of the ‘cut-off’, which in this case is 30 deaths

per 1,000 live b irths. Even c ountries that ha ve a chiev ed this level still haveroom for further p rogress.

Goa l 4Reduce child mortality

One of the highest priorities for governments

across the region must be to reduce the numberof children dying before their fifth birthday. There

are two main indicators here, one for infant mor-

tality (under 12 months) and one for under-five

mortality. The target is to reduce under-five mor-

tality by two thirds.

The Asia-Pacific region is moving too slowly

to meet this vital goal. As Figure 1-6a indicates, the

rate for the region as a whole is still around 60

deaths per thousand live births – which is almost

double that of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Indeed, as is evident from Figure 1-6a, the total

number of deaths, 4.3 million, is similar to that for

Sub-Saharan Africa, and represents two in five of the world’s under-five deaths.

The greatest success story in the region is Viet

Nam (VN) which has already more than halved its

rate and is an early achiever (Figure1-6b). Indone-

sia (ID), Lao PDR (LA) and Timor-Leste (TL)

have also made significant progress – they are ei-

ther on track or have reached the target.

Some of the most serious problems are in

South Asia where most countries are off-track,including India which alone has 1.9 million chil-

dren dying annually before reaching the age of five,

and the rate for Afghanistan is more than 250

deaths per thousand live births (Box 1 4). But the

rates are also high in other parts of the region: 143

in Cambodia (KH), for example, which is regress-

ing. The situation is also disturbing in some CIS

countries: in Turkmenistan (TM) the rate is over

100 and it too is regressing, as is Kazakhstan (KZ)

at a lower level. Other CIS countries, including

Azerbaijan (AZ), Tajikistan (TJ), and Kyrgyzstan

(KG) are moving too slowly to meet the goal.

Around half of child deaths are linked to un-

dernutrition, but many children are also still dying

from diseases for which there are effective immu-

nizations. The MDG indicator for this is theproportion of one-year old children immunized

against measles. For the region as a whole the

average immunization rate at 75 per cent is still

quite low, indeed scarcely different from that in

1990. Good progress in some countries, notably

Sri Lanka where the rate is now 99 per cent, has

been offset by slippages elsewhere, especially in

China where between 1990 and 2005 measles im-

munization coverage fell from 98 to 86 per cent.

There have also been some disturbing reductions

in Pacific Island states: from 95 to 62 per cent in

Tuvalu, for example, and from 89 to 57 per cent

in Samoa.


Per 1,000 live births

0

50

100

150

-50 0 50 100 150

Regional average

Cut off

(257) AF

AZ

BD,BT

BN

KH

CKFJ

GE

IN

IDIR

KZ

KI

KP

KR

LA

KG,

MY,

MV

MH

FM

MN

MM

NP

NR

PK

PW

PG

PH

RU

SG

SB

LK

TH

TL

TO

TJ

TR

TM

TV

UZ

VN

VU

*

* AM, CN, WS

China

South•East Asia

Pacific


CIS Asia

India

South Asia(excl. India)

LDC Asia Pacific

Latin America& Caribbean

Asia Pacific

Sub•SaharanAfrica

0 1 2 3 4 5

0 33 66 100 133 166

Deaths, millions (bars)

Per 1,000 live births (markers)



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Goa l 5Improve maternalhealth

Another important indicator for measur ing progress for women is the maternal mortality ra-

tio – which is a strong indicator of the attention

that is paid to health care for women. Across the

region around a quarter of a million women die

each year as a result of events as natural as preg-

nancy and childbirth, and many are left disabled or

chronically ill.

The target is to have reduced the maternal

mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and

2015. Unfortunately, this important indicator is dif-

ficult to measure accurately, whether through vitalregistration data or through sample surveys, and

few countries have sufficient data to indicate trends.

The most recent data, which refer to 2000, are sum-

marized in Figure 1-7. The region’s overall mater-

nal mortality ratio, at over 300 per 100,000 live

births is over 30 per cent higher than the rate in

Latin America and the Caribbean, and maternal

deaths in Asia and the Pacific accounts for almost

half of the global total. Nor are there indications

that the ratio is coming down significantly.

Table 1-2 lists the countries with the highest

ratios. Afghanistan’s rate is one of the highest in

the region and in the world, but there are also dis-

turbingly high figures in many countries of South

and South-East Asia. On the other hand, a num-ber of countries have also achieved ratios that are

relatively low for developing countries: Fiji, 75;

China, 56; and Thailand, 44.

The starting point for improving maternal sur-

vival is close attention to women’s health and nu-trition status generally, including reproductive health

care and good antenatal care. But any woman, how-

ever healthy or well nourished can suffer compli-

cations in pregnancy that may require emergency

obstetric care. In such situations, she should have

the support of a skilled birth attendant who can

recognize any danger signs, take the necessary ac-

tion, and refer the patient quickly to an appropri-

ate health facility. In many parts of the region, the

proportion of births with this assistance is quite

high, close to 100 per cent, including the CIS coun-

tries and many in the Pacific. But, as indicated in Table 1-3, in the countries with the highest mater-

nal mortality ratios the proportion of women who

get this kind of support is often far lower.

Figure 1-7Maternal mortality, 2000

Note: This chart doe s not use p rogress symbols as no trend d ata a re ava il-

able.

Ta b le 1-2Maternal mortality ratios and births attended by skilledpersonnel

China

CIS Asia

South East Asia

Pacific

Asia Pacific

w/o China & India

India

South Asia

(excl. India)

LDC Asia Pacific

Latin America

& Caribbean

Asia Pacific

Sub Saharan

Africa

0 50 100 150 200 250

0 182 365 547 729 912

Deaths, thousands (bars)

Per 100,000 live births (markers)



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Goa l 6Combat HIV and AIDS,ma la ria and otherdiseases

Halt and begin to reverse thespread of HIV and AIDS

HIV prevalence is lower in the Asia-Pacific region,

at 0.3 per cent, than in some other regions – 6.2

per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa, and 0.6 per cent in

Latin America and the Caribbean. Nevertheless,

this still translates into large numbers of people

living with HIV – around 6 million in total. As is

also evident from Figure 1-8, over two million of

these are in India alone – where the 2006 preva-lence of 0.36 per cent represents a downwards

revision from earlier estimates, resulting from im-

provements in data collection. The number of in-

fections is rising fast in some of the CIS countries

– with an estimated 940,000 people living with HIV

in the Russian Federation alone – and in a number

of other countries in the region, including

Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and

Viet Nam.

per cent in Cambodia and 1.4 per cent in Thai-

land, though in both countries it has been coming

down. In the high-prevalence countries the num-

bers of men and women infected are similar,

though in Papua New Guinea the number is higher

for women. Over the last two years, despiteprogress in treatment, 640,000 people have died.

In a number of other Asian countries, includ-

ing the CIS countries, the most common way to

acquire HIV is through injecting drug use, by shar-

ing needles or syringes with an infected person. In

India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand and

Viet Nam HIV prevalence among injecting drug

users averages 20 per cent. Nevertheless, in South

and South-East Asia people most often acquire

HIV through unprotected sex. As the prevalence

rises in the Pacific the epidemic is not confined tothese higher-risk groups but is considered to be a

‘generalized epidemic’, and almost 60 per cent of

those infected are women.

Indeed, married women can be at high risk

as they acquire the virus from their husbands. In

Papua New Guinea they account for half of all

new infections. A number of other countries also

account for a high proportion of new infections:

39 per cent in Thailand, for example, and 46 per

cent in Cambodia (UNAIDS, 2006).

One precondition for halting the epidemic is

for people to understand how the virus is spread. Although many young people are aware of HIV

and AIDS, their knowledge does not usually run

very deep. In surveys, people are deemed to have

a comprehensive knowledge of HIV and AIDS

if they can correctly identify two ways of pre-

venting sexual transmission and can reject three

major misconceptions. On this basis, the

proportion of men sufficiently well informed

among the 15-24 age group varies widely across

the region: from over 45 per cent in Cambodia

and Viet Nam, to 15 per cent in Armenia, andseven per cent in Uzbekistan.

As yet, relatively few people are receiving anti-

retroviral therapy, largely because of the under-

investment in health-care systems. Asia ranks lower

than Africa and Latin America in terms of per

capita investment in health.

Ha lt a nd beg in to reverse thesprea d of ma la ria a nd o therdiseases

Malaria remains a problem in many parts of the

region. Asia accounts for around 38 per cent of

the global malaria burden with some of the great-

Figure 1-8

Peop le living with HIV, 15-49 ye ars old, 2005

Note: For each country or country group, the current prevalence refers to2005 thoug h for India 2006. The symb ols represent current level rathe r than

long- term trends as da ta are on ly ava ilable fo r 2003 and 2005 (2006 for India).Even so, during this short pe riod the situation in some co untries has dete rio-

rated.

In terms of HIV prevalence the most serious

problem is in Papua New Guinea where between

2003 and 2005 the prevalence increased from 1.6

to 1.8 per cent. The prevalence is also high at 1.6

China


CIS Asia


LDC Asia Pacific

South−East Asia

India

Pacific

Asia Pacific

Latin America& Caribbean

Sub−SaharanAfrica

0 5 10 15 20

0 1 2 4 5 6

Millions (bars)

Prevalence, % (markers)



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a n d

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15

CIS Asia

China

Asia Pacific

w/o China & India

South East Asia

South Asia

(excl. India)

India

LDC Asia Pacific

Pacific

Latin America

& Caribbean

Asia Pacific

Sub Saharan

Africa

0 2 4 6 8

0 105 210 314 419 524

Millions (bars)

Prevalence, per 100,000 (markers)


Prevalence, per 100,000

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

-50 0 50 100 150

Regional average

AF

AS

AM, AZ,

BD

BT

BN

KH

CN

HKMO

FJ

GE

PFGU

IN

ID

KZ,

KI

KP

KR

LA

KG MY

MV

MH

FM

MN

MM

NP

NC,

NR

NU

PK

PW

PGPH

RU

WS

SB

LK

TH

TL

TO,

TJ

TR

TM

TV

UZ

VN

VU

*

* CK, IR, SG

(TL) with prevalence greater than 700 per 100,000.

While the MDG goal is to reverse the spread of TB, to give an indication of the scale of progress,

the target selected here is to halve the prevalence

by 2015, as set by the Stop TB Partnership. On this

basis some countries in Figure 1-9b are off track,

though not by too much since most have travelled

around 50 per cent of the distance – and even

Timor-Leste is making progress to be on track.

This chart shows an encouraging cluster of early

achievers, among which Kiribati stands out since

between 1990 and 2005 it reduced the prevalence

from 1,175 to 426 per 100,000. The lower left

area of the chart has a group of CIS countries,

including Tajikistan where between 1990 and 2005

the prevalence increased from 196 to 297.

est problems in the Pacific. Since 1990 the preva-

lence has been coming down in many of the coun-

tries most seriously affected, but the region still

accounts for 10 per cent of malaria deaths at the

global level (Roll Back Malaria, 2005). The highest

number of reported cases per 100,000 popula-tion is in the Solomon Islands, at over 20,000, fol-

lowed by Vanuatu at nearly 7,500. In South-East

Asia the numbers are somewhat lower: 3,000 in

Timor-Leste and 1,500 in Myanmar which had the

highest number of deaths at around 1,700 in 2004

(WHO, 2007a). In this subregion the disease is of-

ten associated with population movements as

people move to endemic zones. One of the best

ways to protect children against malaria is to pro-

vide insecticide-treated bednets. As shown in Table

Ta ble 1-3Malaria prevention and treatment, percentage of under-five children

Use o f insect ic ide-

treated bednets(2000-2005)

T re at m en t o f fe v er w it h

ant i-malar ia l drug s(2000-2005)

A ze rb ai ja n 1 .4 0 .8

India . . 12.0

Indo nes ia 25.9 0.7

L a o PD R 17 .7 8 . 7

T aj ik is ta n 1 .9 68 .9

T im o r- L est e 8 .3 19 .3

V ie t N am 15 .8 6 .5

Another major disease of concern across the

region is tuberculosis. As in the rest of the world,both the prevalence and the death rate from tu-

berculosis have started to decline and most parts

of the region are on track to meet the goal. As

shown in Figure1-9a, the prevalence is around half

that in Sub-Saharan Africa; nevertheless, two out

of three people affected by TB live in the Asia-

Pacific region, where there are around 925,000

deaths each year. Although the prevalence in the

CIS countries is lower than in other country groups,

this is the only country group in which the preva-

lence is increasing; these countries are also seeing a

rise in multi-drug resistant TB.

Within countries, however, the most serious

problems are in Cambodia (KH) and Timor-Leste

Figure 1-9bTube rculosis preva lenc e, by c ountry, latest year

Figure 1-9aTuberc ulosis prevalenc e, by region a nd c ountry group, 2005

1-3, in Viet Nam close to 16 per cent of children

sleep under such nets and in Lao PDR the propor-

tion is 18 per cent. In Timor-Leste only 8 per cent of

children sleep under insecticide-treated bednets as

opposed to 26 per cent in Indonesia.

Note: The assessment presented in these cha rts are ba sed on the ad ditiona l targe ts set by the Stop TB Partnership - to halve p revale nc e and de ath rates by 2015(from 1990 levels).



P r o gr e s s i n

A s i a an d t h e

P a c i f i c

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M

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Goa l 7Ensure environmentalsustainability

Environmental sustainability in its many dimensions

is becoming an increasingly critical issue for this

region – whether in terms of the deterioration in

the natural environment, or the lack of access to

clean water and sanitation. Environmental deterio-

ration is closely linked with poverty – indeed, an

increasing proportion of the poor in the Asia-Pa-

cific region are poor because they are living in ar-

eas where the environment is under stress (Box 1-

5).

Some of the economic growth in the region

has been at the cost of rapid deforestation – nota-bly in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Phil-

ippines, and to a lesser extent in Malaysia and Thai-

land. Between 2000 and 2005 most countries in

the region suffered a net loss of forest cover. Nev-

ertheless, thanks to reforestation efforts in a num-

ber of countries including Armenia, Azerbaijan,

China and Viet Nam, the region as a whole regis-

tered a slight increase.

However, this masks a stark reality: biodiverse

natural forests are being lost across the region, at

best being replaced by lower productivity planta-

tion forests. The continued loss of natural forests

is reducing critical ecosystem services, including that

of carbon sequestration. This has serious implica-

tions for global warming since globally deforesta-

tion is associated with 18 to 25 per cent of green-

house gas emissions – a higher proportion than

for transportation.

Nevertheless, efforts in this region need to

focus on growing use of energy which is the most

important contributor to global and regional CO2

emissions. One of the most important issues is

energy efficiency. A number of countries boosted

their efficiency between 1990 and 2004, particu-

larly Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan

and Tajikistan, which almost doubled their energy

efficiency. China also managed to double its en-

ergy efficiency over the same period – from 470

to 226 kg of oil equivalent per PPP $1,000 of

GDP.Both total CO2 emissions and energy use per

capita in the developing Asian countries remain far

lower than in developed countries. But since emis-

sions are coupled with economic growth they are

likely to rise, particularly in South-East Asia. As a

result, although an increase in economic expansion

has contributed to the progress in achieving other

MDG indicators, in 32 of the 52 countries for

which data are available it has resulted in increased

CO2 emissions. The CIS countries, on the other

hand, have reduced emissions, though due more

to economic slowdown in the early 1990s than

pro-active policymaking.

Box 1-5The rise in e nvironmenta l po verty

Across the Asia-Pacific region poverty can increas-

ingly be linked to e nvironm ent a l fac to rs. This is evi-

dent from the geographical distribution of the poor.

Of the estimated 641 million people in the region

who survive on less than $1 per day, around half livein areas that are under environmental stress – either

in urban slums, in drylands, in flood or disaster proneregions, in remote upland or mountainous areas, or in

coastal zones where they depend on deplet ing

marine resources. For some of these people, poverty

will be due to o ther fac tors, but fo r the vast majority

the principal cause of poverty will be the degraded

and deteriorating environment in which they live.

Environm enta l pressures also be ar d ow n he av ily

on the health and livelihoods of the region’s vulner-able people just above the poverty line, living on $1

to $2 pe r da y. Taken tog ether the po or and the

vulnerable a mount to 1.8 billion – of who m o ver half

can be said to live in ‘environmental poverty’. Fur-

ther, the number of those living in poverty due toenvironmental causes is likely to increase by 2020

ac co rding to some e stimates to two -thirds of thepo or. This is principa lly be c ause the area s und er envi-

ronmental stress are likely to become more exten-sive, with the increase in desertification, for example,

though this will be offset to some extent by migra-

tion away from the most difficult environments.

For many of the people living in environmen-

tally fragile and marginal areas, poverty is exacer-

bated by threats from natural disasters, including the

ad de d risks from c lima te c han ge . The Asia-Pac ific re-

gion, since 1990 has seen around 90 per cent of the

world’s disaster-related deaths, and these events arebec oming m ore frequent. Betwe en 2000 and 2005,

the reg ion suffered from 192 floo ds a yea r, but in 2006

the number rose to 226. In 2007 floods displaced over

20 million people in northern India, Bangladesh and

Nepal.

MDG 7 makes the link between environment

and poverty. But given the increasing importance ofpoverty due to environmental causes, we need bet-

ter targets and indicators – on land degradation, for

example, on the poor who depend on wetland, on

the de pletion of co astal and forest areas, and on the

prop ortion of t he p oo r living in slums. Som e c ount riesin the region, such as Viet Nam and China are now

reflecting the l inkages between poverty and the

environment in their national development plans.



P A R T 1

M D G p


a n d

t h e P a c i f i c

17

Pacific

LDC Asia Pacific

South East Asia


China


India

CIS Asia

Sub SaharanAfrica

Asia Pacific

Lattin America& Caribbean

0 20 40 60 80

0 19 38 58 77 96

Millions w/o clean water (bars)

Proportion, % (markers)

Pacific

China

LDC Asia Pacific

CIS Asia

South East Asia


Asia Pacific

w/o China & India

India

Sub Saharan

Africa

Latin America

& Caribbean

Asia Pacific

0 100 200 300 400 500

0 17 33 50 66 83

Millions w/o clean water (bars)


Figure 1-10aPop ulation with ac ce ss to imp roved wa ter source s, rural, by

region and co untry g roup, 2004

Figure 1-10bPopulation with access to improved water sources, urban,

by region and c ountry g roup, 2004

Halve the p rop ortion of p eop lewithout a c c ess to sa fe d rinkingwater

Another vital aim for this region must be to im-

prove supplies of drinking water. The lack of clean water is the largest single cause of child mortality

due to diarrhoeal disease and is causing many oth-

ers to grow up sick or undernourished (Box 1-6).

WHO estimates that, on average, each person needs

at least 20 litres of drinking water per person per

day for hygiene, drinking and cooking.

Typically, the households with the greatest dif-

ficulty in getting clean sources of water are in rural

areas, and that is also the case in the Asia-Pacific

region. Across the region, the average coverage is

76 per cent in rural areas, which is higher than in

Latin America and the Caribbean, and the region

as a whole is on track for this indicator largely be-

cause of rapid progress in India which has reached

83 per cent (Figure 1-10a). Other countries are,however, moving more slowly, notably China

which alone has almost as many rural people

underserved as the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa,

and the situation appears to be deteriorating in a

number of countries in the Pacific. Across the re-

gion, over 560 million people in rural areas lack

access to improved water sources. This is a par-

ticular burden for women and girls who are al-

most universally responsible for collecting water.

Households are more likely to have water

from improved sources in urban areas: for the

region as a whole the average is around 94 per

cent (Figure 1-10b). In some respects, however,

the situation is more disturbing in urban areas, since

on this indicator the region as a whole is regress-

ing. The Pacific Island countries are a cause for

concern since their level of urban provision is lower

than in Sub-Saharan Africa and is regressing. In

addition, most of the countries falling behind are

also experiencing rapid rates of urbanization, sug-

gesting that the difficulties lie primarily in provid-

ing services to fast-growing slum populations.

India (IN), despite having a high populationliving in slums, is performing relatively well and is

an early achiever, but the rest of South Asia is mov-

ing only slowly towards the target (Figure 1-10b

and 1-10c). South Asia excluding India, where the

proportion of urban populations living in slums

are at the highest levels in the region – Afghanistan

at 98 per cent, Nepal at 92 per cent and Bangladesh

at 84 per cent – is finding it difficult to provide

access to improved sources of water (Table 1-4).

Despite its strong economic growth, South-

East Asia is regressing and accounts for around

one-quarter of the people in the region affected

by inadequate access to safe water. In Cambodia

and Lao PDR over 65 per cent of urban dwellers

live in slums. While these numbers have decreased

for Viet Nam and the Philippines, still close to half of their population in cities live in slums.



P r o gr e s s i n

A s i a an d t h e

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Proportion, %

20

40

60

80

100

-50 0 5 0 100 150

Regional average

Cut off

AF

BD

CN

CK,

FJ

GE

PFGU

IN

ID

KZ

KI

KG,

MH

FM

MM

NP

PK

PW

PG

PH

RU

NU,WS

LK

THTO

TR

TV

UZ

VN

India

China

LDC Asia Pacific

South Asia

(excl. India)

Pacific

Asia Pacific

w/o China & India

CIS Asia

South•East Asia

Sub•Saharan

Africa

Asia Pacific

Latin America

& Caribbean

0 500 1000 1500

0 11 22 33 44 56

Millions w/o basic sanitation (bars)


,


Proportion,%

70

80

90

100

-50 0 50 100 150

Regional average

Cut off

AF

AM,

AZ

BD

CN

CK,

GE

IN

ID,

IR

KR,

KI

KZKG,MV

MH

FM

MN

MM

NP,PK

PW

PGPH

RU

WS

LK,TH TR

TV

UZ

VN

VU

Figure 1-11b shows the extent of the prob-

lem by country. China (CN), for example, started

with a low level, 7 per cent in 1990, and although it

has made progress, has still, at 28 per cent, trav-

elled less than half the distance to its target. It ac-

counts for one-third of the region’s people with-out safe sanitation. Another third of those without

access are in India (IN), which has also made

progress, from 3 to 22 per cent, again not enough

to stay on track. Bangladesh too is off track. Of

the other larger countries in South Asia, Pakistan

(PK) is just on track while Sri Lanka (LK) is an

early achiever. A number of Pacific countries give

cause for concern. While Samoa (WS) is an early

achiever and Tuvalu (TV) is on track and at quite ahigh level, others, such as Fiji (FJ), Palau (PW),

Papua New Guinea (PG) and the Federated States

of Micronesia (FM), are off track.

Tab le 1-4Proportion o f urban p op ulation living in slums, 10 highest

Figure 1-11aPopulation with access to basic sanitation, rural, by region

and co untry g roup, 2004

Figure 1-11bPopula tion with ac ce ss to ba sic sanitation, rural, by co untry,

latest year

ter. In the Asia-Pacific region, as elsewhere in the

world, access to safe sanitation is generally signifi-

cantly lower than access to clean water. In rural

areas the Asia-Pacific average is only 33 per cent

(Figure 1-11a). This region, with over 1.5 billion

people affected, accounts for three-quarters of the

world’s rural population without basic sanitation.

Halve the p rop ortion o f peop lewithout basic sanitation

The lack of clean water is closely linked to access

to sanitation since the pollution of groundwater,

rivers and other water sources with faeces further

heightens the risks of contaminated drinking wa-

Figure 1-10cPopulation with access to improved water sources, urban,by co untry, latest year



P A R T 1

M D G


19

From red to green

This brief overview gives some sense of the scale

of MDG progress across the Asia-Pacific region. As these figures have demonstrated, even for therelatively few indicators for which cross-regional

data are available, there are far too many red warn-

ings indicating that, on present trends many of

the MDG goals could easily be missed. Some of the red symbols appear in unexpected places, of-ten alongside countries that might be expected tohave the resources to address these issues more

Box 1-6The rights to safe water and basic sanitation

MDG 7 on environmental sustainability includes

targets on improving peoples access to clean drinking

water and basic sanitation. But the wording of these

targets does not give full weight to what should beseen as basic human rights. Without safe water and

sanitation people are exposed to multiple risks that

undermine their standards of health and nutrition and

also make them poorer and more vulnerable.

Across the region in 2004, some 659 million people

did not have access to clean drinking water. In the ruralareas, the region as a whole is on track to reach the

target, but this is largely due to remarkable progress in

India. India has raised rural coverage to 83 per cent, a

success story that results from large-scale efforts by the

Indian government with support from many interna-

tional organizations, including ADB and UNICEF. A num-

ber of other countries still have very low rural coverage:

only 32 per cent in Papua New Guinea, for example.

For urban supplies, the region is off track and is struggling

to meet the demand created by rapid urbanization.In some cases the lack of access is due to water

scarcity, but more often it results from the ways in which

water is used and distributed. Richer households in ur-

ban areas typically have hundreds of litres of cheap

water per person per day while poorer urban house-

hold generally pay far more per litre and they, along

with most poor rural households, survive on much less

than 20 litres per person per day, the minimum quantity

required to meet basic human needs (UNDP, 2006).

It is also important to address water quality

especially given rapid urbanization and increasing pol-

lution in cities. Several countries in the region,

includingChina have been raising standards and carry-

ing out more frequent inspections and have significantly

im proved the quality of urban water supplies. Probably

as a result of these improvements, recent figures for

diarrhoea in China are well below those of many other

developing countries in the region.For basic sanitation the situation is worse. The Asia-

Pacific region is some way behind other global regions,

with three-quarters of the worlds people without ac-

cess to basic sanitation 1.9 billion in total. With 2008 as

the International Year of Sanitation, national govern-ments and international agencies have an opportunity

to intensify their efforts to scale-up sanitation

programmes.

Meeting the water and sanitation targets will have

major implications for achieving many of the other MDGs.

Better health allows people to be more productiveand thus reduces poverty. In addition, there are direct

benefits for the survival and health of children. The re-

port Asia Water Watch 2015 (ADB, 2007a) suggests that

achieving the targets for water and sanitation would

reduce the number of episodes of diarrhoea by 275

million cases. Providing just two litres per day of clean

water for drinking, the average individual requirement,could deliver huge health benefits. This would also

greatly improve the standards of nutrition since healthier

children are better able to absorb nutrients, which in

turn boosts mental capacity allowing them to learn

more rapidly at school. Less need to fetch water from

long distance particularly benefits girls and women reducing their time and work burden and providing

them with more opportunities to go to school or en-

gage in productive work. Improved access to water

and sanitation can thus underpin many of the other

MDGs.

effectively. On the other hand, green symbols are

displayed for many poorer countries which arekeeping on track or achieving the goals, sometimes

against considerable odds.

How do we turn the red symbols green? Formany countries, this will require a renewed focuson the goals likely to be missed, reorienting priori-

ties and redirecting national resources towards the

areas of greatest weakness. This may require greater

attention for an entire sector such as sanitation.Or more commonly it will involve identifying thegroups who are being left behind an issue ad-

dressed in the second part of this report.



P r o gr e s s i n

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M

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PART 2

Beyond national averages

The first part of this report assessed MDGprogress at the national level highlightingthe differences in achievement betweencountries. Just as significant, however, aredisparities within countries between the rich-est and poorest groups for example, be-tween urban and rural areas, or betweenstates or provinces.

Intra-country disparities are especially impor-tant for the Asia-Pacific region which includes some

of the worlds most populous countries. The poor-est 20 per cent of the populations in China andIndia, for example, would on their own represent

the worlds fourth and fifth largest countries with

populations larger than Indonesia. Countries thatare on track for a given indicator can thus still beleaving many millions of people behind. How-

ever, all countries, large and small, need to identify

those groups and subgroups that are missing out.This chapter looks more closely at intra-coun-

try disparities, concentrating on some MDG indi-cators to which the countries of the region needto pay special attention: the proportion of the

population living on less than $1 a day; under-fivechild mortality; under-five malnutrition, and accessto improved water and sanitation.

This picture is partial since only a few coun-tries have recent trend data by subgroup

emphasising once more the need for better data

to track MDG progress. Demographic and HealthSurveys are available for some Central Asian coun-tries, though they are not very recent. In the case

of the Pacific islands micro data are rarely avail-

able and when they are, they are usually not in thestandardized manner needed for cross-country

comparisons. Nevertheless we highlight the coun-tries for which comparable data are available, since

their experience suggests important considerationsfor other countries.

Growing inequality

Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have

achieved remarkable reductions in income pov-erty through strong economic growth. East andSouth-East Asia took the lead in the 1980s but sub-sequently countries in South Asia and elsewhere also

started to grow more rapidly. In the 1980s the fruitsof this growth were distributed fairly equitably,

hence the reduction in poverty.

Over the past seventeen years, however, thepattern has been changing. Growth has proceededapace but the benefits are now being skewed to-

wards the better off. Although in many countries

the poor continue to see their incomes rise, therichest have seen their incomes rise even faster and

as a result, there have been significant increases ininequality.

This is clear, for example, from data on shares

of national income. In many countries the poorest20 per cent of the population have seen their shareof national income drop steeply. Between 1990

and 2004, in South Asia it fell from 7.2 to 6.7 percent and in East Asia from 7.1 to 4.5 per cent

one of the lowest proportions in the world (United

Nations, 2007).

These trends are confirmed by a more com-prehensive measure of inequality, the Gini-index.

For any population the index takes a value between

0, corresponding to absolute equality, and 100 cor-responding to one household taking everything. In

the past, Ginis across the Asia-Pacific region havebeen significantly lower than in other parts of the

world. This is no longer the case.

The bars in Figure 2-1 show that in the pastdecade or so, out of 20 countries in the region, 14saw inequality rise, while only six saw it fall. The

steepest increases were in Nepal, where the Gini-index increased by more than nine points, and inChina where it increased by more than six points.



P A R T 2

B e y o n d

n a t i o n a l a v e r a g e s

21

As the blue markers in this figure indicate, Nepal isnow the most unequal of these countries, withChina not far behind, both with Ginis close to 50

– approaching those in Latin America, usual ly among the world’s highest.

These two countries are certainly not alone inhaving high levels of inequality. The Philippines and

Turkmenistan had smaller increases in their Ginisbut these pushed the rates to quite high levels. Even

Thailand, which achieved the greatest reduction,still has a high Gini at 42.

It might be argued that if economic growthcontinues to boost the incomes of the poor anincrease in inequality does not really matter, butthere are three major caveats. The first caveat isthat rising inequality can loosen social cohesion:conspicuous contrasts between rich and poor couldlead to social or political instability and underminefuture MDG achievements.

Second, it represents a missed opportunity forhad these countries avoided the increase in inequality,they would have been even more successful in re-ducing poverty. If Nepal, for example, a strong

performer on many of the MDGs, had managedto hold its Gini steady it would now have only half as many people living in poverty (ADB, 2007).

A third caveat is that uneven progress can re-sult in vicious cycles of inequality. Educational dif-ferences – the best indicator of future income – show how disparities can endure. In India, aroundhalf of those living in a household where the head

has no schooling or incomplete primary educa-tion, live in poverty, a proportion that has hardly changed since 1993. A child born into such a homeis therefore ten times as likely to live in poverty asa child born to a parent with an education levelhigher than secondary school. Particularly impor-tant is the education level of the mother which hasa strong influence on children’s prospects of re-ceiving primary education.

The Philippines has reduced poverty at thenational level, but did so more rapidly for house-

holds where the head had completed at least pri-mary education. Hence, in 2003 three out of fivepeople in poverty lived in a household where thehead had the lowest education level, a higher pro-portion than at the beginning of the 1990s. In VietNam, two out of three living in such cohorts arepoor. For both countries, however, if the head of the household holds at least a college degree theirchildren will be able to break out of the cycle of poverty.

It should be emphasized that these inequali-ties refer to income, which is not necessarily themost important measure of well-being. Parents liv-ing in poverty are likely to be more worried about

properly feeding their children or about the qual-ity of services at the nearest health centre. Althoughincome is still a key indicator of these choices, thefollowing sections broaden the picture by consid-ering inequality in other vital aspects of humandevelopment and in those indicators for which theregion has not performed that well.

Surviving the firstfive years

One of the most sensitive indicators of progressin human development is children’s chances of sur-

vival. Each year across the Asia-Pacific region over

Source : ADB, 2007

Figure 2-1Changes in the Gini-index, 1990s–2000s

Ta ble 2-1

$1/ day poverty rates by e duca tion level of household head ,

1990s–2000s

India Philippines Viet Nam

1993 2004 1994 2003 1993 2002

No schooling/ some primary 51.5 46.7 29.5 27.1 19.2 7.7

Complete primary 31.1 26.8 19.2 13.3 15.7 2.5

Complete secondary 14.5 13.1 5.7 3.8 8.1 1.0

Higher 4.9 4.7 0.5 0.5 3.9 0.1



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four million children die before reaching their fifthbirthday. As the first part of this report has shown,

the risk of early death varies significantly from one

country to another. But childrens chances also dif-fer according to which part of a country they areborn in and to what type of household. Even coun-

tries that are on track to achieve the under-fivemortality MDG can still fall far short in rural areasand in poor households.

For those countries for which trend data areavailable, Figure 2-2 shows that not only are un-

der-five mortality rates typically far higher in rural

than in urban areas, by over 50 per cent or more,but that these rural-urban gaps have persisted. Theratios between rural and urban areas are indicated

along the bottom of the figure. Of these coun-

tries only Bangladesh, which is on track for thisgoal, managed to reduce the ratio significantly, from

1.4 to 1.1 between 1996 and 2004. Nevertheless,this decline is due less to success in rural areas thanto a failure to make much impact in urban areas.

Of Bangladeshs six divisions the greatest progress was in Sylhet, where 85 per cent of the populationis rural and between 1996 and 2004 the under-five

mortality rate fell by 30 per cent.

Box 2-1Health disparities in China

Between 1990 and 2004, the proportion of peopleliving on less than $1 a day in China fell from 33 to

10 per cent, with 250 million less people under ex-treme poverty. However, this growth has been ac-companied by widening disparities: between 1982and 2004 the Gini-index rose from 30 to 47.

These disparities are also evident in the nutri-tional status of children across provinces. Althoughthe percentage of children underweight is close tozero in Beijing and Shanghai, in the province ofQinghai it is almost 6 per cent, and while the pro-

portion has been coming down here and in someother provinces, in others such as Hebei the prob-lem has been getting worse.

China has also made progress in reducing

maternal mortality. Between 1994 and 2004, the

maternal mortality ratio in urban areas fell from 44to 26 per 100,000 live births and in the rural areasfrom 76 to 63 though as a result the rural-urbanratio increased from 1.8 to 2.4 (Ministry of Health ofChina, 2006). Why is the health gap widening be-

tween rural and urban areas? Many cite the col-lapse of the Cooperative Medical System and theprogressive privatization and commercializationof health insurance and medical services. In thelate 1970s virtually everyone had some kind ofhealth coverage but by 1990 the proportion cov-ered had dropped to 55 per cent in urban areasand to 10-20 per cent in the rural areas. Healthinsurance coverage is especially low, at less than

5 per cent, among the poorest quintile of the popu-

lation (Tandon and Zhuang, 2007).Meanwhile medical costs have been esca-

lating. Between 1990 and 2005, in-patient healthexpenditure almost tripled exposing millions topotentially catastrophic health crises. Many poor

counties and districts, short of tax revenue, nowdemand payment even for basic immunizationand other preventive health services, includingantenatal care and reproductive health care.Payments for catastrophic health costs are one ofthe main reasons why people fall into poverty.

The Chinese government has recognized theurgent need to make health care more accesibleand affordable and has recently taken further measures, such as improving the coverage of ba-

sic health insurance for the rural poor.

China, proportion of children underweight in selectedprovinces

Source: Ministry of Health of China, 2006

Figure 2-2Under-five mortality rates, urban and rural trends



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Viet Nam, on the other hand, an early achiever

that is continuing to make progress, is doing somore rapidly in urban areas; as a result the rural-urban gap has widened. The Philippines too is

doing well overall and is on track to meet this goal,

but here too the gap is widening. In 2003, for ex-ample, in the largely urban National Capital Re-

gion, the under-five mortality rate was 31 per thou-sand live births, while in the largely rural region of Mimaropa the rate was 68.

Probably the most striking story is in Nepal,another on-track country. Between 1990 and 2005the national under-five mortality rate fell from 145

deaths per thousand live births to 74, but regionaldisparities were still significant: in 2006 in the East-

ern region the rate was down to 60 but in the Mid-

western region it was 122. Whether they are born in rural or urban ar-eas, the children least likely to survive are those in

the poorest households. This is clear from Figure

2-3 which shows that the poorest 20 per cent of households account for considerably more than

20 per cent of a countrys child deaths for VietNam and the Philippines around 30 per cent. The

number at the end of each bar captures the great-

est contrast: the ratio between the rates for thepoorest and richest wealth quintiles. These com-parisons and subsequent discussions are based on

wealth, which is judged on the basis of the quality of housing, for example, or the possession of cer-tain consumer durables, since it is difficult to col-

lect quality data on household income.

For both Viet Nam and the Philippines the

current ratios of under-5 mortality between thepoorest to richest quintile also represent deteriora-tion. Despite their success in achieving or moving

towards the under-five survival goals, the gaps be-

tween poor and rich have been widening. In VietNam between 1997 and 2002 the ratio between

the two rates increased from 2.8 to 3.4, and in thePhilippines, between 1998 and 2003, from 2.7 to3.2. On the other hand, for Bangladesh and Indo-

nesia, the ratios between poor and rich decreasedslightly from 1.9 to 1.7 and from 3.7 to 3.5 re-spectively between the 1990s and the 2000s.

These two ways of examining disparities, by residence and by income groups can also be ap-

plied in sequence, considering first the urban and

rural areas and within these, looking at the rates by wealth quintile. Figure 2-4 shows this for the Phil-ippines in 2003; although children in urban areas

are more likely to survive, the experience is very

different for children in poor and rich households.The greatest contrast is between the poorest house-

holds in rural areas and the richest ones in urbanareas. Children in the poorest rural quintile are nearly

four times as likely to die before reaching the age

of five as those in the richest urban quintile.

In addition to disparities based on income orresidence, countries also have gender disparities in

under-five mortality. In most cases the mortality rates are higher for boys than girls, though in somecountries, such as India the rate is marginally higher

for girls.Nowadays, across the region more children

are surviving to the age of five and beyond. If

countries are to reduce the mortality rates still fur-ther, they will have to tackle some of the more

Figure 2-4The Philippines, under-five mortality rates by residence and

wealth quintile, 2003

Figure 2-3Under-five mortality rate by wealth quintile and the ratio ofpoorest to richest quintile, latest year

Note: The latest year refers to the latest DHS in each country (see Technical

Note on page 54), except Armenia (2000) and Cambodia (2000).

3.4

3.2

2.6

3.1

3.5

1.8

2.4

1.4

2.0

1.7

2.1

1.9

1.5

0 20 40 60 80 100percent

Turkmenistan

Nepal

Armenia

Bangladesh

Kyrgyzstan

Uzbekistan

Cambodia

Kazakhstan

Indonesia

India

Turkey

Philippines

Viet Nam

low second third fourth high



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difficult problems. This will mean, for example,

reaching out to children in the more remote ruralareas or in urban slums; but it also means making greater efforts to protect the youngest children,

for as under-five mortality rates come down the

remaining deaths are increasingly concentratedamong children aged twelve months or younger.

Many infant deaths take place very early - globally one-third occur during the first 28 days of life(WHO, 2005).

One of the best ways of helping children tosurvive their earliest hours and days is to ensurethat their births are attended by skilled personnel.

More and more women are being supported by skilled birth attendants, but regional disparities re-

main high. While on average 61 per cent of births

in Asia are attended by skilled personnel, this is thecase for only 44 per cent in South-Central Asia asopposed to 71 per cent in South-East Asia.

Across the region the likelihood of receiving

this vital support is far less for the poorest fami-lies. Household data from Viet Nam and the Phil-

ippines demonstrate the contrasts: for the richestquintile the proportion of births attended by skilled

birth attendants is over 90 per cent, but for the

poorest quintile the proportions drop to 58 percent in Viet Nam, and 25 per cent in the Philip-pines. One of the most challenging places to be

born, however, is in a poor household in Nepal, where only four per cent of births in the poorestquintile are attended by skilled personnel.

Ensuring that childrenare well nourished

A childs death is usually directly attributable to aspecific disease, such as pneumonia, diarrhoea or

measles. There are, however, other preventable

causes such as malnutrition: around half of un-der-five deaths are attributable to some extent to

undernutrition, which weakens the childs resistanceto disease. Despite the Asia-Pacific regions progressin reducing poverty, it has been much less success-

ful in ensuring that its children are well nourished,as indicated by the proportion of children whoare underweight. The proportion of under-five

children who are underweight is around 28 percent in Asia and the Pacific and higher still in South

Asia at over 40 per cent, a rate considerably higher

than that of Sub-Saharan Africa.

As with under-five mortality, the problemsare typically more severe in rural areas. In Nepal in

2006, for example, the proportion of under-five

children underweight was 23 per cent in urban ar-eas but 41 per cent in rural areas. In India, thesedifferences by residence are also reflected by state.

In 1999, while in the North-eastern state of Sikkimthe proportion of children underweight was only

one in five, in the Central state of Madhya Pradeshthe proportion was close to three in five. Accord-ing to some estimates, more than 40 per cent of

all underweight children in India live in five of 28

states: Maharashtra, Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh,Uttar Pradesh (Gragnolati et. al., 2005).

These disparities are even starker by wealth

quintile. As illustrated in Figure 2-5, in India,

Bangladesh and Nepal the rates of children un-derweight for the poorest quintiles are more than

twice those for the richest quintiles. In Cambodia

too, rates are over 40 per cent in the poorest quintilein contrast to only half of that in richer house-

holds.

For countries that can provide appropriatedata it is also possible to break down the rates by wealth quintile within urban and rural areas. This is

illustrated in Figure 2-6 for India, showing that while

the overall rates are higher in rural areas, the situa-tion is worse in urban areas where disparities are

Figure 2-6India, underweight children under-five, by residence and


Figure 2-5Proportion of underweight children under-five by wealth

quintile, latest year



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25

greater. In the poorest rural quintile the propor-

tion of under-five children underweight is 61 per

cent, while in the poorest urban quintile it is 66 per

cent.

The d rive for c leanwater

Child health and child nutrition are also closely

linked to the availability of clean drinking water.

Children drinking contaminated water not only suf-

fer from diseases such as diarrhoea but also find it

more difficult to absorb nutrients and thus become

more malnourished. In terms of access to drink-

ing water from improved sources the region as a

whole has made progress - many countries are early achievers. But there are striking rural and urban dif-

ferences, not just in overall coverage but in the

sources of water. In rural areas improved sources

would typically be tube wells, boreholes, protected

dug wells or protected springs, while urban house-

holds may use similar sources, they are more likely

to get water from public standpipes in the streets

or have water piped to their homes.

The overall rural-urban pattern, as mentioned

in the previous section, shows that in urban areas

access for most countries is often above 90 per

cent, but with rural areas often lagging by 10 to 20percentage points. Nevertheless there are still seri-

ous problems for urban households. In Bangladesh,

Indonesia and the Philippines there are signs that

as a result of urban population increase, the cov-

erage is falling. Over the period from 1990 to 2005,

all three countries saw a large influx of migrants to

the cities. The proportion of the total population

living in urban areas in Bangladesh rose from 20

to 25 per cent, in the Philippines from 49 to 63 per

cent and in Indonesia from 31 to 48 per cent.

Many of these new urban dwellers settle indensely populated slum areas, increasing their ex-

posure to contagious diseases, unsanitary condi-

tions and high levels of pollution. In Bangladesh,

for example, 85 per cent of urban dwellers live in

slums in 2001. Governments have found it diffi-

cult to keep up with this rural-urban influx and to

provide these new inhabitants with improved wa-

ter supplies. Between 1990 and 2004, urban access

to improved sources of water in Bangladesh de-

creased from 83 to 82 per cent, while in Indonesia

over the same period, coverage dropped from 92

to 87 per cent; both countries are thus regressing

for this MDG target.

In some countries progress has been faster in

rural areas. Nepal and Viet Nam, for example, have

been able to provide rural households with access

to improved sources of water more rapidly than

other countries in the region, making them early achievers. Between 1990 and 2004, Nepal increased

coverage in rural areas by 22 percentage points,

from 67 to 89 per cent, compared with only one

percentage point in urban areas. Viet Nam in-

creased rural coverage twice as much as it did ur-

ban coverage (Figure 2-7).

When countries achieve high overall levels of

coverage the disparities between income groupsstart to narrow. In countries where coverage is still

low, however, there can be wide gaps between

rich and poor. Cambodia, for example, has very

low coverage of water from improved sources,

nationally only 41 per cent, a rate similar to that of

Afghanistan. Geographical disparities are also sig-

nificant since the proportion of urban households

with access to improved sources of water is twice

that in rural areas, where coverage is only 35 per

cent. In Kandal, the region surrounding the capi-

tal, Phnom Penh, an estimated 85 per cent of thepopulation had access to water in 2000, while in

rural areas the proportion was only around one-

third.

As Figure 2-8 shows, in urban areas of Cam-

bodia where over 70 per cent of urban residents

living in slums, there are much greater disparities

between rich and poor. Among the richest quintile,

80 per cent have coverage, but among the poorest

quintile the proportion drops to 17 per cent. Al-

though in rural areas disparities are smaller, even

for the richest rural quintile access is lower than the

urban average.

Figure 2-7Ac cess to improved wa ter sources betwee n 1990 and 2004,

by residence

1.0

22.0

9.0

21.0

-5.0

6.0

-1.0

3.0

-8.0

2.0

-15

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

C h a n g e

i n p e r c e n t a g e

p o i n t s

Nepal Viet Nam Indonesia Bangladesh Phi lippines

u rban rural



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in Nepal and 80 per cent in Cambodia in 2005,coverage of improved sanitation facilities for thepoorest quintiles is close to zero.

The contrasts in access to improved sanita-

tion by both urban-rural areas and wealth quintilesare illustrated for Indonesia in Figure 2-11. Indo-nesia is moving only slowly towards its target at

the national level, and also has a low coverage in

Access to improved sanitation is usually lower than

that for improved water supplies. While families want better sanitation facilities, they tend to give a

higher priority to clean water, and national politi-cal agendas rarely feature sanitation. This is despitethe evident benefits: changing from unimproved

to improved sanitation can lead to a 30 per centreduction in child mortality (UNDP, 2006).

Improved sanitation includes, for example,

household toilets or latrines connected to a pipedsewerage system, septic tanks or pits, ventilated im-

proved pit latrines, or composting toilets. People

without these facilities might use open pits, bucketlatrines, defecate in fields, or dispose of faeces inplastic bags or in rivers. Improved sanitation fa-

cilities are less common in rural areas.

For the countries included in Figure 2-9, the

ratio between urban and rural provision of im-proved sanitation ranges from 1.3 in Uzbekistanto 2.7 in India. Even within urban areas there canbe stark contrasts, with very low sanitation cover-

age in the poorest areas. For people in slums it canbe difficult to construct even a basic toilet facility,not just because of the cost, but also because of a

lack of secure tenure or of supporting infrastruc-ture.

Within the rural areas , coverage can by

analysed by household wealth. For a number of countries coverage of improved sanitation facili-

ties for the lowest quintile is often less than one-quarter that of the richest quintile (Figure 2-10). In

countries with high percentages of their total popu-lation living in rural areas, for example 84 per cent

Figure 2-10Access to improved sanitation, rural areas, by wealth quintile,

latest year

Figure 2-8Cambodia, access to improved water sources, by residence

and wealth quintile, 2000

Access to improvedsanitation

Figure 2-9Access to improved sanitation, urban and rural, 2004

Figure 2-11Indonesia, access to improved sanitation, by residence and




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27

rural areas. Between 1990 and 2004 access to sani-

tation in rural areas increased only by three per-centage points over a 14-year period, moving from37 to 40 per cent. Although the progress rate was

higher for urban areas, there is still a striking gap

between rich and poor. Moreover, in urban areasthis gap has been widening further; between 1997

and 2002, the ratio in the access of the richest andpoorest quintiles increased slightly, from 5.0 to 5.2.

For sanitation, as for the other MDG indicators

considered in this part of the report, progress at thenational level does not always reduce disparities be-tween rural and urban areas, or between richer and

poorer households. This emphasizes the need to adopt

more inclusive strategies across all MDG target areas to ensure that the benefits of economic growth are

shared equitably, so as to reduce poverty and pro-mote sustainable human development.



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EPILOGUETowards a global partnership

The series of MDG reports for Asia and the Pa-

cific has demonstrated how, as a result of nationalefforts, the region has continued to make signifi-cant progress, particularly in primary education and

in reducing the number of people living in ex-treme poverty, on less than $1 per day. Indeed inmany countries the development agenda is mov-

ing on to address those living on less than $2 perday often called the vulnerable poor. At the same

time, however, governments are becoming more

concerned about particular groups and regions thatare being left behind those living in the slums of major cities, or in environmentally fragile zones.

Whatever the sector, the overall aim should

be to reduce poverty and vulnerability while im-

proving the delivery of basic services. This willmean pursuing pro-poor growth in a broader

sense not just promoting income generation for

the poor but also expanding physical and socialinfrastructure, such as transport, water, energy, and

health and education services. These prioritiesshould be reflected in national development strat-egies.

Countries across the region have already dem-onstrated this approach. Indonesia, for example,has designed specific social sector policies for the

poor. China has been investing in pro-poor infra-structure. Viet Nam has been tackling environmental

poverty with special programmes for poor people

living in upland areas. Countries in Central Asiathat have long since achieved high primary enrol-ment are now looking more to secondary educa-

tion and vocational training that can help people

adjust to changing labour markets.Many countries will be able to follow their

own strategies and maintain or renew their mo-mentum for the MDGs by investing from theirown resources. But others, particularly the regions

least developed countries, do not have the fundsto meet all their investment needs. They have a largeresource gap the difference between savings

and investment as a percentage of GDP. In 2003,

Afghanistan, for example, had a resource gapamounting to 32 per cent of GDP, while in Timor-Leste the gap was 77 per cent (ESCAP, 2005c).

The eighth Millennium Development Goalseeks to build a global partnership for develop-ment, which could help meet such gaps through,

for example, official development assistance(ODA). At the global level ODA has reached

record amounts but the LDCs in the Asia-Pacific

region have been getting a steadily smaller share.Between 2000 and 2003, ODA to LDCs in otherglobal regions increased by 87 per cent but to the

Asia-Pacific LDCs by 60 per cent. Also of con-

cern is the situation of the Landlocked Develop-

ing Countries (LLDCs) and the Small Island De- veloping States (SIDS). In 2005 ODA received by

the LLDCs ranged from 12 per cent of GNI in

Mongolia to 0.45 per cent in Kazakhstan, and ODAreceived by the SIDS ranged from 71 per cent in

the Solomon Islands to 7 per cent in Papua New Guinea. While not many Asia-Pacific countries fallinto the category of highly indebted poor coun-

tries, some countries would benefit from debt re-lief.

Another component of the eighth goal that

would help developing countries fill the resourcegap is enhanced market access. The LDCs in this

region face, on average, higher tariffs than other

LDCs and since 1990 the proportion of devel-oped country imports coming from Asia-PacificLDCs has declined. The LDCs would benefit

greatly from duty- or quota-free access to the de-

veloped countries. Other developing countries inthe region also face above-average tariff levels for

many of the traditional exports in which they havecomparative advantage. To some extent thesecountries have been able to offer mutual support

by offering preferential access to each others mar-kets. But the developed and more advanced developing countries need to do much more. The

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29

best way to provide additional momentum would

be to conclude the Doha Development Round which would add legal certainty to LDCs duty-and quota-free access to developed-country mar-

kets.

Preferential access in trade can be comple-mented by greater south-south cooperation from

one developing country to another such asthrough technical assistance. This now appears tobe increasing, with support to poorer countries

coming from China, India, the Republic of Ko-rea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. All coun-tries will benefit too from cooperation on infor-

mation and communications technologies, but par-ticularly the LDCs which at present risk being left

behind.

Building a global partnership for the MDGscomplements the overall responsibility of national

governments for mobilizing resources aligning their

budgets towards development strategies aimed atachieving the goals. Indeed, many countries have al-ready done so. As this report has shown, even the

poorest countries have been able to make rapid

progress on at least some of the indicators, and someof the largest countries have had some striking suc-

cesses in helping many millions of people emergefrom poverty or get basic education and better watersupplies.

The task is to ensure that these and other ad- vances now take place on a much broader front across all countries, and across all the goals. The Asia-

Pacific region has in many respects been setting thepace for the developing world, particularly in eco-

nomic growth. Now it has the opportunity to focus

again on equity and extend the benefits of rapideconomic and social development to all its people.

T o w a r d s a g l o

b a l p a r t n e r s h i p

E P I L O G U E



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Index to MDG indicators

Millennium Development Goals, targets and indicators Page Data Source

Goal 1 - Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target 1 - Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day 1. Proportion of population below $1 (PPP) per day i 35 World Bank 2. Poverty gap ratio (incidence x depth of poverty) 35 World Bank

3. Share of poorest quintile in national consumption 35 World Bank Target 2 - Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

4. Prevalence of underweight children under-five years of age 36 UNICEF5. Proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy 3 6 FAOconsumption

Goal 2 - Achieve universal primary education

Target 3 - Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able tocomplete a full course of primary school6. Net enrolment ratio in primary education 37 UNESCO7a. Proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5 ii 37 UNESCO7b. Primary completion rate 37 UNESCO8. Literacy rate of 15-24 year-olds 37 UNESCO

Goal 3 - Promote gender equality and empower women

Target 4 - Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 20159. Ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education 38 UNESCO10. Ratio of literate women to men, 15-24 years old 39 UNESCO11. Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector 39 ILO12. Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament 39 IPU

Goal 4 - Reduce child mortality

Target 5 - Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate13. Under-five mortality rate 40 UNICEF14. Infant mortality rate 40 UNICEF15. Proportion of 1 year-old children immunized against measles 40 UNICEF

Goal 5 - Improve maternal health

Target 6 - Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio16. Maternal mortality ratio 41 WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA17. Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel 41 UNICEF

Goal 6 - Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Target 7 - Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS18. Percentage of people living with HIV 42 UNICEF/UNAIDS/WHO19. Condom use rate of the contraceptive prevalence rate 42 UNFPA19a. Condom use at last high-risk sex 42 UNICEF/UNAIDS/WHO19b. Percentage of population aged 15-24 years with comprehensive correct 43 UNICEF/UNAIDS/WHOknowledge of HIV and AIDS19c. Contraceptive prevalence rate 43 UNFPA20. Ratio of school attendance of orphans to school attendance of 43 UNICEF/UNAIDS/WHOnon-orphans aged 10-14 years

Target 8 - Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and othermajor diseases21. Prevalence and death rates associated with malaria N/I22. Proportion of population in malaria-risk areas using effective malaria 15 UNICEFprevention and treatment measures23. Prevalence and death rates associated with tuberculosis 44 WHO24. Proportion of tuberculosis cases detected and cured under directly 44 WHOobserved treatment short course DOTS (Internationally recommended TB

control strategy)Goal 7 - Ensure environmental sustainability

Target 9 - Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies andprogrammes and reverse the loss of environmental resources25. Proportion of land area covered by forest 45 FAO26. Ratio of area protected to maintain biological diversity to surface area 45 UNEP



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27. Energy use (kg oil equivalent) per $1 GDP (PPP) 45 World Bank 28. Carbon dioxide emissions per capita and consumption of 46 CDIAC/UNEPozone-depleting CFCs(ODP tons)29. Proportion of population using solid fuels N/I

Target 10-Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safedrinking water and basic sanitation30. Proportion of population with sustainable access to an improved 47 WHO/UNICEF water source, urban and rural31. Proportion of population with access to improved sanitation, urban 47 WHO/UNICEFand rural

Target 11-By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least100 million slum dwellers32. Proportion of households with access to secure tenure 18 UN-Habitat

Goal 8 - Develop a global partnership for development

Target 12-Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system

Target 13-Address the special needs of the least developed countriesTarget 14-Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island

developing StatesTarget 15-Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through

national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in thelong term33. Net ODA, total and to the least developed countries, as percentage of 48 OECDOECD/DAC donors gross national income34. Proportion of total bilateral, sector-allocable ODA of OECD/DAC 48 OECDdonors to basic social services (basic education, primary health care, nutrition,

safe water and sanitation)35. Proportion of bilateral official development assistance of OECD/DAC 48 OECDdonors that is untied36. ODA received in landlocked developing countries as a proportion of their 48 OECDgross national incomes37. ODA received in small island developing States as a proportion of their 48 OECDgross national incomes38. Proportion of total developed country imports (by value and excluding N/Iarms)from developing countries and least developed countries, admittedfree of duty 39. Average tariffs imposed by developed countries on agricultural products N/Iand textiles and clothing from developing countries40. Agricultural support estimate for OECD countries as a percentage of 49 OECDtheir gross domestic product41. Proportion of ODA provided to help build trade capacity 49 OECD/WTO42. Total number of countries that have reached their HIPC decision points N/Aand number that have reached their HIPC completion points (cumulative)43. Debt relief committed under HIPC Initiative N/A44. Debt service as a percentage of exports of goods and services 4 9 World Bank

Target 16-In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies fordecent and productive work for youth45. Unemployment rate of young people aged 15-24 years, each sex and total 50 ILO

Target 17-In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordableessential drugs in developing countries46. Proportion of population with access to affordable essential N/Idrugs on a sustainable basis

Target 18-In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications47. Telephone lines and cellular subscribers per 100 population 51 ITU48a. Personal computers in use per 100 population 51 ITU48b. Internet users per 100 population 51 ITU

Note: Goals, targets and indicators according to the global Millennium Indicators Database ( http://mdgs.un.org). At the 2005

World Summit, world leaders committed themselves to achieving four additional targets to the ones included in the MillenniumDeclaration (2005 World Summit Outcome A/RES/60/1). The Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicaotrs subse-quently work on the selection of the appropriate indicators for the new targets. This process has led to a revised MDG monitoring framework, to be reflected in future MDG progress assessments.

N/I = Not Included due to unavailability of data in the global Millennium Indicators Database

N/A = Not Applicablei For monitoring country poverty trends, indicators based on national poverty lines should be used, where available.ii An improved measure of the target for future years is under development by the International Labour Organization.

Abbreviations and acronymsCDIAC: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis CenterFAO: Food and Agriculture Organization of the

United NationsILO: International Labour OrganizationIPU: Inter-Parliamentary UnionITU: International Telecommunication UnionOECD: Organization for Economic Cooperation

and DevelopmentUNAIDS: Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

UNEP: United Nations Environment ProgrammeUNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific

and Cultural OrganizationUNFPA: United Nations Population FundUN-Habitat: United Nations Human Settlements

ProgrammeUNICEF: United Nations Childrens fund

WHO: World Health Organization WTO: World Trade Organization



M D G i n

d i c a t o r t a b l e s

33 $ 1 p o v e r t y

U n d e r w e i g h t c h i l d r e n

P r i m a r y e n r o l m e n t

R e a c h i n g g r a d e 5

P r i m a r y c o m p l e t i o n r a t e

G e n d e r P r i m a r y

G e n d e r s e c o n d a r y

G e n d e r t e r t i a r y

U n d e r - 5 m o r t a l i t y

I n f a n t m o r t a l i t y

H I V p r e v a l e n c e

T B p r e v a l e n c e r a t e

T B d e a t h r a t e

F o r e s t c o v e r

P r o t e c t e d a r e a

C O 2 e m i s s i o n s

O D P C F C c o n s u m p t i o n

W a t e r u r b a n

W a t e r r u r a l

S a n i t a t i o n u r b a n

S a n i t a t i o n r u r a l

East and North-East Asia

China Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ŷ Ŷ ŶDemocratic People's Republic of Ÿ ź ź Ɣ Ɣ ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔHong Kong, China Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Macao, China Ÿ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ ź Mongolia Ÿ Ɣ ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź źRepublic of Korea Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ ź ź ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ

South-East AsiaBrunei Darussalam Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Cambodia ź Ɣ Ŷ Ɣ Ÿ Ŷ Ŷ ź ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Indonesia Ɣ ź Ɣ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ŷ Ŷ ŶLao People's Democratic Republic ź Ŷ Ÿ Ŷ Ŷ Ÿ Ŷ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź źMalaysia Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔMyanmar Ŷ ź Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ ƔPhilippines Ŷ Ŷ ź ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ŷ Ÿ ŶSingapore Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔThailand Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔTimor-Leste Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ÿ Viet Nam Ɣ ź Ÿ ź Ŷ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ŸSouth and South-West Asia

Afghanistan Ÿ Ŷ ź Ŷ Ŷ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ ŸBangladesh ź Ŷ Ɣ Ŷ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ÿ Ŷ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź ź ź Ŷ ź ŶBhutan Ÿ Ŷ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź źIndia Ŷ

Ŷ

Ɣ

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ŷ Ŷ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ

Ɣ

ź

ź Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ŷ

Iran (Islamic Republic of) Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ŷ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ ź ź Ɣ źMaldives Ÿ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ ź Ɣ Ɣ ź ƔNepal Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ŷ Ɣ Ÿ Ŷ Ÿ Ŷ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ ŶPakistan ź Ŷ Ŷ Ŷ Ŷ Ÿ Ŷ Ŷ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ŸSri Lanka ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ ƔTurkey Ɣ Ɣ ź ź ź Ɣ Ÿ Ŷ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ŶNorth and Central Asia

Armenia Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ ź ź ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Azerbaijan Ɣ ź Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ŷ Ŷ Ÿ ź ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ŶGeorgia ź ź Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź ź ź ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ źKazakhstan Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź Ÿ ź ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź źKyrgyzstan Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ŷ Ÿ ź ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź źRussian Federation Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ ź źTajikistan Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź Ŷ Ŷ Ÿ ź ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Turkmenistan ź ź ź ź Ÿ Ɣ ź Ɣ Uzbekistan Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ŷ ź ź ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ÿ Ÿ

Pacific American Samoa Ɣ Ɣ ź Cook Islands Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ÿ Ɣ Ŷ Ɣ ƔFiji Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź źFrench Polynesia Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔGuam Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔKiribati Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ ź Ÿ Ŷ Ÿ Ÿ ŶMarshall Islands Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ÿ ŶMicronesia (Federated States of) Ŷ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ źNauru Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ New Caledonia Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ ź Niue ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔNorthern Mariana Islands Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔPalau Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ŷ ź Ɣ źPapua New Guinea ź Ŷ ź Ÿ Ŷ Ŷ ź Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź ź ź źSamoa Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ź Ɣ ź ź Ɣ ƔSolomon Islands Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ ź

Ɣ

Ɣ

Ɣ

Ɣ

Tonga Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ ź Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ Ɣ ƔTuvalu Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ Ÿ Ÿ Ɣ ŸVanuatu

Ɣ Ŷ Ŷ Ɣ Ŷ Ÿ Ŷ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ Ɣ Ɣ Ÿ ź ź

Table A Countries on and off track for the MDGs

Early arc hieve r ; On trac k; Slow; No prog ress/Reg ressing

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea



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Table B Data by region and country group

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M D G i n


35

Goal 1

Erad ic a te extreme poverty and hunger Target 1 - Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

East and North-East Asia

China 33.0 (90) 9.9 (04) . . . 2.1 (04) . . . 4.3 a (04)

DPR Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hong Kong, China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 b (96)

Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.6 a (93)

Macao, China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mongolia 13.9 (95) 10.8 (02) 3.1 (95) 2.2 (02) 7.3 a (95) 7.5 a (02)

Republic of Korea . . . 2.0 c,d (9 8) . . . 0.5 d,e (98) . . . 7.9 a,d (98)

South-East Asia

Brunei Darussalam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cambodia . . . 34.1 (97) . . . 9.7 (97) 6.9 a (97) 6.8 a (04)

Indonesia 17.4 (93) 7.5 (02) 2.7 (93) 0.9 (02) 8.3 a (93) 8.4 a (02)

Lao PDR 18.6(92)

27.0(02)

3.0(92)

6.1(02)

9.6a (92)

8.1a (02)

Malaysia 2.0 c (92) 2.0 c (97) 0.5 e (92) 0.5 e (97) 4.6 b (92) 4.4 b (97)

Myanmar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Philippines 19.8 (91) 14.8 (03) 4.2 (91) 2.9 (03) 5.9 a (91) 5.4 a (03)

Singapore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.0 b (98)

Thailand 6.0 (92) 2.0 c (02) 0.5 e (92) 0.5 e (02) 5.6 a (92) 6.3 a (02)

Timor-Leste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Viet Nam . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.7 (93) 9.0 (04)

South and South-West Asia

Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bangladesh 35.9 (92) 41.3 (00) 8.8 (92) 10.3 (00) 9.4 a (92) 8.6 a (00)

Bhutan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .India 41.8 (93) 34.3 (04) 10.7 (93) 7.9 (04) . . . 8.1 a (04)

Iran (Islamic Republic of) 2.0 c (90) 2.0 c (98) 0.5 e (90) 0.5 e (98) 5.2 a (90) 5.1 a (98)

Maldives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nepal 34.4 (96) 24.1 (04) 9.0 (96) 5.4 (04) 7.5 a (96) 6.0 a (04)

Pakistan 13.5 (99) 17.0 (02) 2.4 (99) 3.1 (02) 8.8 a (99) 9.3 a (02)

Sri Lanka 3.8 (90) 5.6 (02) 0.7 (90) 0.8 (02) 9.0 a (90) 7.0 a (02)

Turkey 2.4 (94) 3.4 (03) 0.6 (94) 0.8 (03) 5.8 (94) 5.3 (03)

North and Central Asia

Armenia 6.7 (96) 2.0 c (03) 1.5 (96) 0.5 e (03) 5.4 b (96) 8.5 a (03)

Azerbaijan 10.9 (95) 3.7 (01) 2.6 (95) 0.6 (01) 6.8 a (95) 7.4 a (01)

Georgia 2.0 c (96) 6.5 (03) 1.0 (96) 2.1 (03) 6.1 a (96) 5.6 a (03)

Kazakhstan 2.0 c (93) 2.0 c (03) 0.5 e (93) 0.5 e (03) 7.5 b (93) 7.4 a (03)

Kyrgyzstan 8.0 (93) 2.0 c (03) 3.3 (93) 0.5 e (03) 2.5 a (93) 8.9 a (03)

Russian Federation 7.0 (96) 2.0 c (02) 1.7 (96) 0.5 e (02) 4.5 a (96) 6.1 a (02)

Tajikistan 13.9 (99) 7.4 (03) 3.4 (99) 1.3 (03) 8.1 a (99) 7.9 a (03)

Turkmenistan . . . 20.7 (93) . . . 5.3 (93) 6.9 (93) 6.1 (98)

Uzbekistan 3.3 (93) 2.0 c (03) 0.5 e (93) 0.5 e (03) 7.3 (93) 7.2 (03)

Pacific

American Samoa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.9 b (94)

Cook Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fiji . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .French Polynesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Guam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kiribati . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Marshall Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Micronesia (Fed. States of) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nauru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .New Caledonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .New Zealand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 b (97)

Niue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Northern Mariana Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Palau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Papua New Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 a (96)

Samoa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Solomon Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tonga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tuvalu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Vanuatu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Earliest Latest

Footnotes: The number in parentheses is the year of the data point. a Refers to expenditure share by percentile of population. b Refers to income share by percentile of

population. c All 2% poverty headcount estimates indicate that actual values are less than or equal to 2% and should be treated with caution. d Urban area only. e All 0.5%

poverty gap estimates indicate that actual values are less than or equal to 0.5% and should be treated with caution.

Earliest Latest Earliest Latest

1. Population below

$1 a day(%)

2. Poverty gap ratio

3. Share of poorest 20%

in national income orconsumption (%)



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Goal 1

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Target 2 - Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

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37

Goal 2

Achieve universal primary educationTarget 3 - Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full

course of primary schooling

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Goal 3

Promote gender equality and empower womenTarget 4 - Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all

levels of education no later than 2015

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39

Goal 3

Promote gender equality and empower womenTarget 4 - Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all

levels of education no later than 2015

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Goal 4

Reduce child mortalityTarget 5 - Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

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41

Goal 5

Improve maternal healthTarget 6 - Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

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Goal 6

Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseasesTarget 7 - Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS

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43

Goal 6

Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseasesTarget 7 - Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV and AIDS

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Goal 6

Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseasesTarget 8 - Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

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M D G i n


45

Goal 7

Ensure environmental sustainabilityTarget 9 - Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and

reverse the loss of environmental resources

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Goal 7

Ensure environmental sustainabilityTarget 9 - Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and

reverse the loss of environmental resources

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M D G i n


47

Goal 7

Ensure environmental sustainabilityTarget 10 - Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water

and basic sanitation

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Goal 8

Develop a global partnership for developmentTarget 12-15 - Develop a global partnership for development - through more aid, better market access

and debt sustainability

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M D G i n


49

Goal 8

Develop a global partnership for developmentTarget 12-15 - Develop a global partnership for development - through more aid, better market access

and debt sustainability

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Goal 8

Develop a global partnership for developmentTarget 16 - In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and

productive work for youth

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T

e c h n i c a l n o t e

51

Goal 8

Develop a global partnership for developmentTarget 18 - In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies,

especially information and communications

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M D G i n




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In these cases, the country is categorized as Off trackNo progress/regressing .

Estimating the trend. To estimate ..... , the trend

since 1990 is estimated first based on at least twodata points, which are at least three years apart.The only exception is HIV prevalence, for whichcountry data are available only for 2003 and 2005for almost all countries. Two different models areused depending on whether the trend for an indi-cator is decreasing or increasing. For decreasing timeseries, a geometric model with annual discrete com-pounding is applied:

................................................

where ........ and ......... denote the latest and first

available values since 1990 for the years ....... and........ , respectively, and ....... denotes the averagegrowth rate between ........ and ..... .. . The averagegrowth rate is calculated as the geometric mean

This specification describes a slope, whichdecreases with a decreasing rate a reasonable as-sumption for the indicators considered.

For increasing time series, an average geomet-

ric rate of change would yield a slope which in-creases at an increasing rate an unreasonable as-sumption. Therefore, for increasing indicators, alinear model is applied instead,....................................................

where ........... denotes the average unitincrease per period between ....... and ...... .

In all cases except for the CIS countries, thefirst and latest available values are used to estimatethe average rate of change. This procedure im-

plicitly takes the intermediate values into accountand has the advantage over the widely used least-squares method in that it covers difference-station-

Technical note

W

W

W

W

W

W

W

W

W

U< <

W

3

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W W

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U

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W W T< <

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MDG progressclassification

The same classification method is applied for both

countries and regions or country groups. The fourcategories of MDG progress towards the targetsare:

Early achiever: Already achieved the 2015 targetOn track: Expected to meet the target by 2015Off trackSlow : Expected to meet the target,but after 2015Off trackNo progress/regressing : Stagnating orslipping backwards

Two different procedures are used to deter-

mine the categories depending on whether or notan indicator has an explicit target value for 2015.For indicators without such a target value, such asHIV prevalence, TB prevalence, TB death rate,forest cover, protected area, CO2 emissions andCFC consumption, only three of the four catego-ries are used: indicators trending in the right di-rection since 1990 are categorized as Early achiever ;indicators showing no change at all over the pe-riod are categorized as On track; and finally indica-tors trending in the wrong direction are catego-

rized as Off trackNo progress/regressing .For indicators with an explicit target value,such as $1/day poverty, mortality rates, schoolenrolment and the gender parity indices, all fourcategories are used. To determine the category, theyear .... - by which a country would reach its MDGtarget if the trend since 1990 continued is esti-mated (see below). Denote ......... as the year withthe latest available value. If ..... is below ....... , thecountry is categorized as an Early achiever. If ..... liesbetween ...... and 2015, it is categorized as On track.

If ..... is above 2015, the country is categorized as

Off trackSlow . Naturally no ..... can be estimatedif a country has a zero trend or trends in thewrong direction, i.e. away from the target value.



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53

Regional and countrygroup aggregates

Regions or country groups are categorized with

respect to their progress towards the MDGs inthe same way as countries. To determine the trendand classify each region or country group accord-ingly, the aggregate values for 1990 and the latestyear, for example. 2004 for $1/day poverty and2005 for under-5 mortality, are estimated first.

For the regions Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and South-East Asia, estimates produced by the responsibleinternational data agencies are obtained from theglobal MDG report (United Nations, 2007) forthe following indicators: underweight children,

under-5 mortality, forest cover, primary enrolmentand CO2 emissions. For $1/day poverty, the esti-mates for all regions and country groups are esti-mated by the World Bank through PovCal Netfor this repor.

The remaining aggregates are estimated by the ESCAP Statistics Division, by using a weightedaverage of the actual country values, or imputedcountry values wherever data are missing for theyear required. The reference population are ob-tained from the World Population Prospects: The 2004

Revision (United Nations, 2005) to be consistent withthe agency estimates. The estimation of the ad- versely affected populations is based on popula-tion data from the World Population Prospects: The 2006 revision (United Nations, 2007).

To impute missing values for 1990 and thelatest year for a country, all available data for otheryears since 1990 are used. If a country has oneobservation during the period, this value is usedfor both 1990 and the latest year, as it providesuseful information for estimating the aggregate.If a country has two or more observations, themissing values for 1990 and the latest year are re-placed with fitted values according to

where ..... and ..... are Ordinary Least Square (OLS)estimates from the model ............................................ with .............................. for decreasing indicator se-ries. For increasing indicators, the fitted values from

based on with are

used. This approach is discussed in more detail inStoff and Lorenceau (2007), see also Holt (2003).

Table 1

Cut-off values for selected MDG indicators

H[SÖ W EE \

E

HW EE \ ORJ

a 1 H V

a 1 H V

ary as well as trend-stationary time series (see e.g. Altinay, 2004). For CIS countries, the impact of the social changes in the early 1990s on many of the MDG indicators is taken into account. The rateof change for all the available data since 1990 is

calculated first and then for all the available dataexcept the first year. If the signs of the two esti-mated rates differ, the trend estimate excluding theobservation for the first year is used.

Estimating the year of MDG achievement .For indicators with a target value, the calculationof ..... is as follows. Let ..... and ..... denote the tar-get value and latest available value, respectively. Fordecreasing indicators, re-arranging .........................andadding ....... gives

.........................................

and for increasing indicators with the linear unitrate of change, it is

Using cut-off values. Many of the MDG tar-gets require an indicator value to increase or de-crease by a certain proportion. In this report, thetarget is also treated as achieved if a country has

reached a certain absolute value. In the case of

W < <

U< <

W

primary school enrolment, for example, this cut-off value is set at 95 per cent, and for $1/day poverty at 5 per cent. The cut-off values for se-lected indicators are presented in Table 1 below.

q

Y Y t t

Lst

Lst

*

*.

0

b

t aa yt 10ˆ

t t et aa y 10



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Regional and country group aggregates arereported only when the countries with more thantwo available data values between 1990 and thelatest year account for more than 50 percent of the total reference population in a region or coun-

try group.The estimated aggregates and affected popu-

lation presented in Figures 1-1 to 1-11b in the re-port can be found in Table B on page 34 by re-gion and country group.

Within-countrydisparities

The $1/day international poverty estimates forIndia, the Philippines and Viet Nam are based oncalculations made by the Development Indicatorsand Policy Research Division of ADB using coun-try-specific household surveys. For India, the dataare from the National Sample Surveys 1993/1994and 2004/2005; for the Philippines, the Family In-come and Expenditures Surveys of 1994 and2003; and for Viet Nam, the Living Standard Sur- veys of 1993 and 2002. The poverty line of $32.74per month in 1993 PPP consumption dollars isconverted into current local currency units for allthe relevant country-year combinations using the

national consumer price indices. The resulting pov-erty lines are then applied to population-weighteddata on monthly per capita expenditures obtainedfrom unit-level data.

All the estimates in Part 2, except those forpoverty, are based on the global MDG databaseand the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)made available by Macro International Inc. Thesesurveys, which provide data on population, health,and nutrition indicators, are nationally representa-

weight children estimates are based on the refer-ence population which have a weight-for-age rateof two (moderately underweight) and three (severe underweight) standard deviations below thosefor the corresponding populations. These popula-tions are defined by the U.S. National Centre forHealth Statistics, as recommended by WHO.

Access to water and sanitation estimates arebased on the country files provided by the WHOand UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP)for water and sanitation (http://childinfo.org/

eddb/water.htm). The values reported by the JMPin the global MDG database are based on a lineartrend for all the data points (surveys) available fora specific country. This report presents the per-centages of safe and protected sources reportedfor each year, for which percentages might differslightly from those based on the linear trend.

The wealth index is a living-standards indexcomposed of different variables which reflecthouseholds assets. The index includes variables onownership of consumer durables such as a radios,

televisions, refrigerators, cars, etc., and variables onthe households dwelling such as the type of toiletfacilities, the sources of drinking water and thebuilding materials used for the house (Filmer &Pritchett, 1998). Weights are constructed using prin-cipal components analysis for each country. Com-parison between countries should be made withcaution because wealth quintiles thus defined may vary from country to country.

tive and range in size from close to 9,000 house-

holds for Nepal 2001, to over 90,000 householdsfor India 1999 (www.measuredhs.com). For theDHS surveys used in this analysis, see Table 2.

Under-five mortality and the proportion of underweight children under five are calculated us-ing the methodology described in the DHS re-ports. Under-five mortality is based on a directestimation method using a synthetic-cohort lifeapproach (see Rutstein & Rojas, 2006). Under-

Table 2

DHS used in analyses of Part 2



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Classification of countries

Asia- Pac ific Reg ion1

Asia-Pacif ic Developed countries Australia Japan

New ZealandAsia-Pacif ic developing countries Afghanistan American Samoa Armenia AzerbaijanBangladeshBhutanBrunei DarussalamCambodiaChinaCook IslandsDemocratic People's Repub-

lic of KoreaFijiFrench PolynesiaGeorgiaGuamHong Kong, ChinaIndiaIndonesiaIran (Islamic Republic of)KazakhstanKiribatiKyrgyzstanLao People's Democratic Re-publicMacao, China

MalaysiaMaldivesMarshall IslandsMicronesia (Federated Statesof)MongoliaMyanmarNauruNepalNew CaledoniaNiueNorthern Mariana IslandsPakistanPalauPapua New Guinea

PhilippinesRepublic of KoreaRussian FederationSamoa

SingaporeSolomon IslandsSri Lanka Tajikistan Thailand

Timor-Leste Tonga Turkey Turkmenistan TuvaluUzbekistan Vanuatu Viet Nam

Asia-Pac ific de velop ingSubregionsNorth & North-East Asia ChinaDemocratic People’s Repub-lic of Korea

Hong Kong, SAR of ChinaMacao, SAR of ChinaMongoliaRepublic of KoreaRussian Federation

North & Central Asia Armenia AzerbaijanGeorgiaKazakhstanKyrgyzstan Tajikistan TurkmenistanUzbekistan

Russia

Sout h-East Asia Brunei DarussalamCambodiaIndonesiaLao People’s Democratic Re-publicMalaysiaMyanmarPhilippinesSingapore Thailand Timor-Leste Viet Nam

South & Sou th-We st Asia 2

AfghanistanBangladesh

BhutanIndiaIran (Islamic Republic of)MaldivesNepal

PakistanSri Lanka

Pacific islands American SamoaCook IslandsFijiFrench PolynesiaGuamKiribatiMarshall IslandsMicronesia (Federated Statesof)NauruNew Caledonia

NiueNorthern Mariana IslandsPalauPapua New GuineaSamoaSolomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu

Asia-Pac ific de velop ingSpec ial groupsLea st Develop ed Countries (LDCs) Afghanistan

BangladeshBhutanCambodiaKiribatiLao People’s Democratic Re-publicMaldivesMyanmarNepalSamoaSolomon Islands Timor-Leste Tuvalu Vanuatu

Commo nwealth Indepe n- dent States (CIS) in Asia Armenia Azerbaijan

GeorgiaKazakhstanKyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan

UzbekistanLand locked Develop ing Countries (LLDCs) Afghanistan Armenia AzerbaijanBhutanKazakhstanKyrgyzstanLao People’s DemocraticRepublicMongoliaNepal Tajikistan

TurkmenistanUzbekistan

Sma ll Island Deve lop ing Sta tes American SamoaCook IslandsFijiFrench PolynesiaGuamKiribatiMaldivesMarshall IslandsMicronesia (FederatedStates of)

NauruNew CaledoniaNiueNorthern Mariana IslandsPalauPapua New GuineaSamoaSingaporeSolomon Islands Timor Leste Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu

----------------------------------1 Refers to members and associatemembers of the United Nations Eco-

nomic and Social Commission for Asiaand the Pacific in Asia-Pacific region.‘Countries’ refers to both countriesand areas such as Hong Kong, Chinaand Macao, China.2 Also referred to as South Asia in the Text and regional aggregates.



Key to c ountry codes

AF Afghanistan AM Armenia AS American Samoa

AU Australia AZ Azerbaijan

BD Bangladesh

BN Brunei DarussalamBT BhutanCK Cook Islands

C N ChinaFJ FijiFM Federate States of Micronesia

GE GeorgiaGU Guam

HK Hong Kong, SAR ChinaID IndonesiaIN IndiaIR Iran (Islamic Republic of)

JP Japan

KG KyrgyzstanKH Cambodia

KI KiribatiKP Democratic People's Republic of KoreaKR Repbulic of Korea

KZ Kazakhstan

LA Lao People's Democratic Republic

LK Sri LankaMH Marshall IslandsMM Myanmar

MN MongoliaMO Macao, SAR China

MP Northern Mariana Islands

MV MaldivesMY Malaysia

NC New CaledoniaNP NepalNR Nauru

NU NiueNZ New Zealand

PF French Polynesia

PG Papua New GuineaPH PhilippinesPK Pakistan

PW PalauRU Russian Federation

SB Solomon IslandsSG Singapore

TH Thailand TJ Tajikistan TL Timor Leste

TM Turkmenistan TO Tonga

TR Turkey

TV TuvaluUZ Uzbekistan

VN Viet Nam VU Vanuatu WS Samoa

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millennium development goals 2007 update

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