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| Issues in the Region |
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General
About 70 percent of the world's rural population live in the Asia-Pacific region.
Yet per capita arable land and permanent cropland available in the region is only
0.16 ha, compared to 0.37 ha in the rest of the world.
Despite limited natural resource
endowments and its massive population base,
substantial inroads in eradicating poverty and food insecurity have been made in the region.
Since 1945 the region's economy grew faster than any other region. Literacy rates have considerably increased, and improved nutrition and public health programmes have raised life expectancies by over a generation in only half a century.
Broader citizen participation in decision-making and governance is reflected in dynamic non-governmental organizations, increased women’s suffrage and decision-making processes open to multistakeholder participation. Information flows more freely in the media and within civil society.
These past achievements form the context for new challenges, many in critical development areas such as education and research, information and communication technologies, modern biotechnology, social innovations in development, growing regional and global linkages, and international trade.
Food security
Although the regional population grew by 1.3 billion from 1969 to 2000, the average daily food availability increased from about 2 000 to 2 600 kilocalories per person. From 1980 to 2000, hunger in Asia-Pacific declined from 32 to 16 percent of the population.
But of the developing world's 815 million hungry people, 519 million live in the Asia-Pacific region. On average, two out of every three malnourished children in the world live in South and Southeast Asian countries. Girl children and women in poor households, people living in remote areas such as members of indigenous communities and hilltribes as well as the rural poor who migrate to Asian megacities are among those who have the least to eat.
According to FAO's latest estimates (2004), the number of hungry people in the Asia-Pacific region has declined by 50 million since 1996, an average yearly reduction of 6 million. To reach the World Food Summit (WFS) goal of halving the number of hungry by the year 2015, the region must on average reduce the number of hungry people by 19 million every year from now until 2015.
Unless efforts to reduce hunger are speeded up, Asia-Pacific will fail to meet the WFS target and still have about 300 million underfed children, women and men by the year 2015. While increases in agricultural production are boosting food supply and raising rural income in Asia-Pacific countries, ensuring access to food for the hungry and poor will persist as a major challenge within the strategic time horizon towards 2015. |
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