Statistics referred to in the course of the meeting indicated that South Asia had made important gains in the fight against poverty. Nevertheless, while there had been specific areas of progress, the idea of freeing the population from the chains of poverty as identified in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) -- halving the number of poor by 2015 -- still remains a distant dream. It appears that such an ambitious possibility might arrive sometime after 2025, and that too if other things fall into place.

Participants pointed out that South Asian countries face new global realities which 'carry both opportunities and risks.' In this context it was outlined that the region's share of exports as a share of global trade had increased but only to the modest level of 0.9 percent. Apparently, despite some gains in India, the region's share in the burgeoning FDI into developing countries remains virtually unchanged.

Comparably, SAARC countries have been more successful in accessing overseas employment. India and Bangladesh are in the top 10 recipients of workers' remittances. Sri Lanka and Pakistan are also not too far behind. While telephone mainlines per 1000 people has more than trebled in the region between 1985 and 2000, South Asia home to 23 per cent of the world's population, still has less than 1 per cent of internet users.

Several economists observed that poverty had declined both in terms of depth and severity but the rate of decline had been modest. It was also pointed out that disparity had been noticed in the status of decline. This trend in turn had created rising inequalities and fuelled social conflicts. The ratio of income share of the richest 20 per cent to that of the poorest 20 per cent varies from 4 in Bangladesh to 5 in India. In lay-man's term, greater economic integration into the world economy has yet to be translated into sustained growth for the majority of the South Asian countries.

Data can be most revealing. The current status of dollar-a-day poverty incidence in South Asia is around 37 per cent but with large variations within the region. Only Sub-Saharan Africa compares to such a poverty level. Comparably, East Asia, Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean have poverty rates in the region of 15 per cent. Surprisingly, it was mentioned that in terms of national poverty incidence, the poverty rate had declined to a varying degree in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka but had increased in Pakistan over the 1990s.

However, we all know that income cannot be the only measure of poverty. There are other factors that might have ameliorated the situation. There was good news in the primary education sector. Net primary enrolment ratio in South Asia averaged at around 77 per cent in 1997 compared to 64 per cent in 1980. This indicated an under one per cent annual rate of increase. There were however wide variations across countries with regard to adult literacy. Sri Lanka and Maldives have attained near-universality on this indicator and are way ahead of the pack. Adult literacy rate in 2000 for South Asia as a whole was however only 55.6 per cent indicating that 44 out of 100 South Asian adults were still illiterate. The other worrying aspect was that within such illiteracy, there was a strong gender disparity: of every three adult illiterates, two are female.

The news was slightly better in the health sector. The under-5 mortality rate in the region has dropped from 148 to 94 deaths per 1000 births in 2000, a drop of 54 deaths per 1000 births in a span of ten years. Even here, however, there are large variations -- from a low of 19 deaths per 1000 births in Sri Lanka to 110 deaths per 1000 births in the case of Pakistan. Fortunately, the rate of progress appears to have been much faster for Bangladesh and Nepal. Within the generic infant mortality sector, Bangladesh appears to have also outpaced Pakistan in terms of improvement.

It was clear from the workshop that South Asia presents many challenges. It was stressed time and again that we need to find the right balance between growth and welfare objectives, between a pro-active role for the state while minimising its involvement in actual implementation and also between embracing the opportunities of the global market-place while resisting the inequities and asymmetries of the globalisation process.

In this context, regional experts reiterated that a more realistic approach to economic growth was necessary. One would tend to agree with such an idea. We should accept the critical importance of economic growth for faster poverty reduction but at the same time, we need to pay greater attention to the poverty-growth interface. Growth by itself will be inadequate in dealing with the multi-dimensional problems of poverty unless we also address the 'structural rigidities and complexity of the socio-cultural environments' in South Asia.

What is probably needed is systematic and rational prioritisation of strategy. The workshop, after lengthy discussion and debate was able to identify such an approach. The agreed list included -- mobilising the latent power of the poor, prudent macroeconomics, mainstreaming the informal economy, enhancing gender and other equities, sustainable development and effective co-operation among the countries of the region.

I believe that there exists many obstacles to participatory poverty management in our region. They can however be overcome. What we need to do is to have an institutional approach rather than the politicisation of governance. We also need to rid our social framework of the criminalisation of politics. In this context, it would greatly help if we could remove the existing nexus between bank defaulters and the political leaderships in different countries. This factor is definitely perpetuating inequities in society.

Transparency in decision making and policy formulation, accountability and competition -- all these factors have to be introduced, if poverty reduction is to take place in South Asia. Such a course will strengthen the rule of law and encourage the unfolding of the law and order mechanism. Promoting local governance and enhancing credibility and trust in administrative intention through demonstrative action (prosecution of high profile figures) will also help. It will also mean that scarce resources will not be wasted unnecessarily.

In addition, planners need to carefully identify the 'policy gap.' There appears to be differences in the policymaker's perception of poverty reduction and the physical aspects on the ground. Proper assessment needs to take place about people's skills and their accessibility to resource. Here, in all certainty, political will has to be reflected.

Basic institutional constraints, including land reform, will have to be implemented. This is definitely not only slowing down the rate of growth in agriculture, but also hampering food security and capital formation in rural areas. The spillover effects are also affecting non-farm sectors.

Our efforts need to be on a two-track format. National efforts towards poverty reduction needs to be strengthened through a regional approach. A South Asian Data Base on Poverty Reduction Best Practices could be the first step in this direction. Experience sharing could also take place in the poverty-relevant areas like natural calamities and disaster mitigation strategies. This could be further widened (later on) by also including sharing of research details of life saving drugs. Our region has many commonalties as well as differences. There are many difficult problems -- some with complex dimensions. However, despite the despair of statistics related to poverty, a poverty-free South Asia is not an impossible dream. We have to realise that it is our collective responsibility.

Muhammad Zamir is a former Secretary and Ambassador.