Poverty in South Asia

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to document and analyse the poverty situation in South Asia. Available information is utilised to infer the progress made during the 1990s, a decade which all the countries of the region implemented some variant of structural adjustment and stabilisation programmes. Economic growth experienced by South Asian countries and its effects on poverty alleviations are discussed. One conclusion is that, with the exception of Pakistan, poverty declined in South Asia during the 1990s. However, the pace at which poverty declined was either slower than the pre-reform period or it failed to register a radical departure from the past. Hence little, if any, impact of reforms was discernible. The paper discusses the growth profile in the region and shows that with the exception of Pakistan, the GDP growth rates were higher during 1990-98 as compared to those of the 1980s. It is also suggested that deceleration in the GDP growth rates has been visible since 1997, which could be due to a variety of factors such as the Asian Financial Crisis, decline in the world demand, and failure to adjust to the competition entailed by tariff reduction and rationalisation. Most of the countries of the region experienced a rise in unemployment rates and a decline in real wages during 1990s-factors informally related to poverty.