Report says South Asia has failed to use resources

South Asia has failed to utilise the resources generated by economic growth in the last three decades in enhancing the quality of life for its people, a report says.

The report, Mahbub ul Haq Human Development in South Asia 2015, has attempted to assess the impact of South Asia’s economic policies on the people’s empowerment since 1980.

It reviewed the economic progress of five countries – Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The report notes that Bangladesh, despite a low per capita GDP, has performed reasonably better in terms of improvement in social indicators than such countries as India and Pakistan.

Mahbub ul Haq was the founder and chief architect of the UNDP’s Human Development Reports. He founded the Human Development Centre in Islamabad in his name in 1995.

The Lahore-based Centre has continued to launch human development reports focusing on South Asia even after his death.

Tuesday’s event was the Dhaka launch of the centre’s 2015 report. BRAC Institute of Governance and Development hosted the launch with its executive director Sultan Hafeez Rahman in the chair.

The report notes that economic growth normally expands employment opportunities and increases growth. “But this does not happen automatically”.

A strong link between economic growth and employment creation requires the formulation of employment-generating policies.

It draws on the East Asian example, where sustained long-term growth expanded employment and raised productivity.

South Asia, on the other hand, has recently been confronting a situation of jobless growth.

“Despite high economic growth, the majority of the people have been unable to find remunerative work and hence are engaged in either low productivity farming or informal work,” according to the report.

The region’s GDP growth has been one of the highest in the world, only behind East Asia and the Pacific, in the last three decades.

The robust growth has resulted in increasing employment opportunities, reducing poverty and hunger, and improving education and health.

“Yet, there have been failures to use the resources generated by the economic growth to enhance the people’s life.

“As a result, poverty and hunger still prevail in South Asia, and access to education and health is inefficient and inadequate”.

Former Finance Secretary M Syeduzzaman, who is the advisor of the Centre from Bangladesh, in his remarks, said that effective use of resources as well as effective use of institutions was needed to obtain maximum benefits of economic progress.

“It takes a policy-based approach,” he said, “to link growth and human development”.

Dr. Selim Jahan, Director, UNDP Human Development Report Office, said that in the human development perspective, “we don’t need jobless, voiceless, ruthless, and futureless growth”.

“What we need is inclusive growth,” he said.

Presenting the report, Farria Naeem, Country Economist of International Growth Centre, expressed her belief that this region had the ability to do better.

“The region has adequate knowledge, ability, resources, technology, political strength, and institutional capacity to make it possible to create a fairer society”.