Wednesday | 15 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Wednesday | 15 January 2025 | Epaper

Shining South AsiaBut . . .

Published : Wednesday, 9 November, 2016 at 12:00 AM  Count : 307
Haradhan Ganguly
South Asia needs to make considerable improvement in
curbing corruption, establishing voice
and accountability, instituting political
stability and
reducing violence and ensuring government effectiveness,
regulatory quality
and rule of law in
the region

Optimistic economists envision South Asia which by 2030 will be an upper middle income region with high GDP growth rate, a strong middle class, Zero acute poverty and hunger, sustainable cities and structurally transformed economies with a strong manufacturing sector. This confidence was explored in a very recently held "Ninth South Asia Economic Summit" in Dhaka. Centre for policy Dialogue (CPD) organised this summit. Other co-organisers were Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS), Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), India, South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), Nepal, and Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Pakistan. 2030 is the end year of implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As is known, 2030 is also the year when the goals and targets set out in the SDGs are to be attained in full measure. The SDGs commit the global community of nations to work towards a future that will be inclusive, equitable and sustainable. The future of the SDGs will, to a large extent, hinges on how South Asia is able to tackle the manifold challenges that inform the pathways towards 2030.
The fact is South Asia accounts for only three per cent of the world surface area. But information says the region is home to nearly 1.5 billion people, about one-fifth of the world population. By 2030, the region is likely to represent about one-fourth of the world population with India expected to become the largest country in population size, surpassing China by around 2022 (CPD). Consequently, South Asia has the highest population density in the world. Majority of its population still reside in rural areas. With 48 per cent inhabitants living in urban areas, South Asia is one of the least urbanised regions in the world. However, over the next decades, it is expected that the region will have a faster urbanisation growth and may outpace the rest of the world.
Although the region was able to attain the goal of halving poverty over the last twenty five years, over half a billion people in South Asia still live below the international poverty line. According to the chronic poverty report 2015, most of the people classified as chronically poor are from the regions of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Besides, according to the 2015 Global Hunger Index (GHI), all the countries in the South Asian region including Bangladesh have GHI scores which are labelled as serious. On a positive side, there is evidence of a declining trend compared to in earlier decades.
The agriculture sector in South Asia provides employment for about 49.2 per cent of the population, with total labour force participation rate at 39.4 per cent (2014) and female labour force participation recorded at 30.5 per cent (2014). In contrast, it is observed that compared to the year 2005, both the values for the indicators have declined from 48.6 and 37.4 respectively (CPD).
Interestingly, the contribution of manufacturing into the world's GDP share is facing a declining trend over the past two decades. The share fell from 21.4 per cent (1995) to 14.7 per cent (2014). The world is amidst a transition from a traditional manufacturing intensive economy to a more service based economy. It should, however be noted that manufacturing is the path to development and cause of economic growth and poverty alleviation.
Although the sources say that in recent times, South Asia has been the second fast developing region after East Asia. Thanks to the robust growth in India (the third largest economy), the economic growth for this particular region is forecasted to gradually accelerate from 7.1 per cent in 2016 to 7.3 per cent in 2017. South Asia generated about 8.7 per cent of the global GDP in 2015.
Absence of primary energy and electricity continues to one of the most crucial constraints to sustained rapid growth in South Asia. Disaggregating this further, it can be observed that while 90.2 per cent of the urban population have access to electricity this value falls to a mere 49.3 per cent for the rural population (2012). Benefits from energy trade in South Asia are thought to be enormous. However in spite of some recent progress, opportunities of cross- border and joint exploitation of energy resources have remained largely untapped.
Establishing good governance is a major challenge for South Asia countries. According to World Governance Indicators (WGI), South Asia needs to make considerable improvement in curbing corruption, establishing voice and accountability, instituting political stability and reducing violence and ensuring government effectiveness, regulatory quality and rule of law in the region.
But a positive gesture is also hovering over South Asia. Underpinned by fiscal and trade reforms, the degree of openness of South Asia economies have been on the rise recently. This has not only created a scope to take advantage of the opportunities brought about by globalisation, but has also introduced new challenges. However, the pace of cooperation in South Asia has been unsatisfactory, with about 5.15 per cent of global trade being intra-regional trade. In contrast, 25 per cent of ASEAN's trade is within its own region. Poor intra-regional investment and lack of connectivity and trade facilitation have led to a situation where South Asian countries are referred to as "distant neighbours". Nevertheless SAFTA, SAARC, SAFAS, SATIS and the creation of SAARC Food Bank are contributing to strengthening regional cooperation. In addition to these initiatives already undertaken, the removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers and ensuring better connectivity will boost intra-regional trade in South Asia by more than 3.5 times according to various studies.
But the glaring hurdle that is stigmatizing South Asian intra-regional cooperation is their inherent problem of evolving injustice. Noted economist Prof Rehman Sobhan explored that enshrined injustice. To him, whilst considerable progress has been registered across South Asia In the reduction of income poverty, economic inequality and social disparities have across the region. While poverty reduction remains incorporated in the policy agendas of all governments in South Asia, less attention has been given to the widening of inequalities or to exploring the scope for corrective action. He argues, injustice remains the principal source of inequality and exclusion in South Asia and is designed to address the structural sources of injustice in South Asia with a view to refocusing policy agendas across South Asia region. The assumption underlying his focus on injustice argue that neither targeting of development resources to the excluded, categorized as the resource poor, women and minority groups, nor the extension of social protection to these groups, are likely to resolve the problem of injustice in South Asia. The excluded and particularly the poor are embedded in certain inherited structural arrangements such as insufficient access to productive assets as well as human resources, unequal capacity to participate in both domestic and global markets and undemocratic access to political power. These structural features of injustice reinforce each other to effectively marginalise the excluded and particularly the more numerous resources poor from fully participating in the benefits of development or to effectively share the fruits of democracy. So shining South Asia would be futile, had there been no measures to cope with injustice rising from the enshrined inequalities in South Asian countries.r
Haradhan Ganguly is a freelance contributor and Secretary, United Nations Association of Bangladesh (UNAB)






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