No Poverty

This paper considers income inequality in Asia and the Pacific, examining whether there has been an increase or decrease in income inequality among countries in the region in recent decades. By analysing the position of countries’ GDP per capita relative to that of a reference economy (Australia), the study finds that between the years 1970 and 2014, most of the region’s less affluent countries were able to catch up in relative terms, allowing them to slowly move up the income matrix towards higher tier groups. Subregional examination reveals that most of the income convergence in the Asia-Pacific region was due to exceptional economic growth in East and North-East Asia and, to a lesser extent, in South-East Asia. While the paper shows that relative income differences between countries in the region have fallen since the 1970s, it points to the need for differentiating between relative and absolute measures of inequality. Insufficient convergence and substantial initial differences in GDP per capita have meant that, despite a decline in relative inequality, absolute differences in average income have grown during the same period.

Although creative economy is emerging as an area to be evaluated, establishing a benchmark against which it can be measured is still problematic due to a range of definitional problems, both conceptual and practical. In recent years, many agencies and governments have invested significant effort into collecting data on creative economy, but in many countries, including Indonesia, measuring creative economy remains a challenge. Data collection on creative economy has been conducted twice in Indonesia, initially through surveys undertaken in 2016 and then in a compilation of the 2016 Economic Census. The data collection used a common classification system to identify the five-digit Indonesia Standard Industrial Classification (KBLI) regarded as creative economy. Out of a total of 1,573 five-digit KBLI codes, there are 223 which are identified as creative economy activities. However, this approach remains unstandardized in terms of concept definitions, data collection procedures, methods of analysis and common classification systems. This paper highlights the numerous limitations in current creative economy measurement in Indonesia, identifying issues and challenges in data collection and creative economy measurement processes that are needed to support the Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper relies on an extensive data set on Nepalese families to examine factors influencing the extent to which maternal health care is provided.

The search for rigorous, transparent and domain-specific measures of empowerment that can be used for gender analysis is ongoing. This paper explores the added value of a new measure of domain-specific autonomy. This direct measure of motivational autonomy emanates from the “selfdetermination theory” (Ryan and Deci, 2000). We examine in detail the Relative Autonomy Index (RAI) for individuals, using data representative of Bangladeshi rural areas. Based on descriptive statistical analyses, we conclude that the measure and its scale perform broadly well in terms of conceptual validity and reliability. Based on an exploratory analysis of the determinants of autonomy of men and women in Bangladesh, we find that neither age, education nor income are suitable proxies for autonomy. This implies that the RAI adds new information about individuals, and as such, could represent a promising avenue for further empirical exploration as a quantitative, yet nuanced, measure of domain-specific empowerment.

Accurate and reliable death statistics produced by civil registration and vital statistics systems are essential for health planning and programme evaluation. The quality of death registration data in Pacific island countries and territories remains suboptimal. Data on deaths occurring at sea are especially limited. While coastal and oceanic activities are the norm and essential to the livelihoods of Pacific island populations, such activities pose risks for accidents at sea, especially those involving small-scale vessels. In this paper, the scale of deaths at sea associated with small vessels in three Pacific island countries or territories over the period 2008-2017 is investigated using data from the health, civil registry, and police and fisheries departments, and reports produced by national statistics offices, ministries of health, the Pacific Community, the World Health Organization and media sources. Data on deaths at sea were found to be fragmented among multiple sources and missing key information on age, sex, and cause. Standardized procedures for reporting deaths and accidents at sea and harmonized data sharing between local communities and government agencies are urgently needed to improve civil registration and vital statistics systems and sea safety in the Pacific island subregion.

The present paper contains an outline of a simulation-model for stress testing the household sector in Mongolia. The model uses data from the Household Socio-Economic Survey to assess the financial resilience of the household sector to macroeconomic shocks. The results suggest that the household sector of Mongolia is vulnerable to shocks associated with interest rates, cost of basic consumption, asset prices and unemployment. In particular, impacts of interest and consumer price shocks on household’s debt at risk (or expected loan losses) are considerable. Furthermore, it has been found that a substantial increase in household indebtedness has boosted the financial fragility of the household sector. Those results have important policy implications in mitigating the increasing financial fragility of the household sector and risks to financial stability.

In recent years, income poverty has been declining steadily in the Asia-Pacific region, but rural poverty remains widespread and deep, and continues to pose a serious challenge for policymakers. Improving agricultural productivity has been a core strategy for economic development and poverty alleviation for several decades, as this type of productivity was thought to facilitate structural transformation, which enables “surplus agricultural labour” to find employment in nonagricultural sectors. However, it has now been realized that the share of agriculture in national output declines more rapidly than the share of agricultural employment in total employment, trapping millions in “unproductive” agriculture and making them relatively poorer. Understanding this process and identifying appropriate responses is critical for poverty alleviation and inclusive growth. Based on data analysis and policy reviews, in the present paper, it has been found that structural transformation processes are incomplete in many developing countries. Reducing rural poverty and promoting inclusive growth cannot be realized by confining to agriculture, but instead they can be achieved by seeking a broader policy framework that facilitates enhanced intersectoral linkages.

Because of the ambition, comprehensiveness and complexity of the 17 goals and 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the implementation of it is very difficult, especially for developing countries such as Pakistan. The present paper introduces an analytical framework based on a subset of the Global SDG Indicators Database to identify an optimal pathway for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Pakistan. The analysis suggests that the optimal pathway would enable the country to progress towards higher income levels and human development. It also suggests that the country’s national development plan, Vision 2025, is expected to contribute towards achieving inclusive and sustainable development provided that the implementation of it is prioritized and sequenced in an optimal manner.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of new States in Central Asia and Southern Caucasus has created new political and security dynamics in these regions. The latter was affected by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the former is confronted by the threat of conflict over shared water resources. More than twenty years later, the protracted conflict in Southern Caucasus over Nagorno-Karabakh remains unresolved and overshadows water-related problems; despite this, the dispute over water is a very important factor in the conflict, and key to overcoming it. In Central Asia, although the threat of conflict over water resources did not materialize, the region remains under the spotlight of water-conflict literature. In the present paper, the complex nature of water security is reviewed through an in-depth analysis of security and development-related factors in their connection to water and vice versa, which leads to the conclusion that policy interventions should be based on a more holistic approach that includes a wider set of issues.

Despite gains in reducing the mortality rates of infants and children in Asia and the Pacific, millions continue to die each year from preventable causes. A growing body of research highlights that more generous maternity leave has significant development benefits, especially with regard to infant mortality and child health outcomes. Little is known, however, about the impact of national maternity leave policies specifically in Asia and the Pacific.

This paper presents the results from using the Digital and Sustainable Regional Integration Index version 1 (DigiSRII 1.0) framework of ESCAP (2020b) to uncover digital economy integration trends across the Asia-Pacific region. The results show that Asia and the Pacific has made good progress with regard to conventional digital economy integration, especially because of the significant improvements in the digital economy infrastructure and liberalization of trade of information and communications technology (ICT) goods. However, capacity-building of the workforce and investment in infrastructure are required to bridge the digitalization gaps among the digitalized economies in the region. Moreover, the fairly low regulatory uniformity among regional economies further highlights the importance of regional regulatory harmonization in order to foster regional trade in digitally enabled goods and services. From a sustainable development perspective, inclusivity and equity of access to digitalization and required infrastructure remain key challenges. While Internet penetration in the region has been rising, female participation in the digital economy has remained relatively low in general and extremely low in lowincome economies. In addition, there is room to enhance cybersecurity in most Asia-Pacific economies. Regional digital policies should focus on harmonizing data protection protocols and building a safer network of servers that would promote economic activity and enable sensitive matters to be conducted online. Fostering a more inclusive digital transformation may considerably boost network-effects and accelerate the transition to a competitive and sustainable regional digital economy.

Traditionally, sovereign debt problems of developing countries have been discussed mostly at institutions representing the creditors, such as the Paris Club, and at the International Monetary Fund, but they have also been addressed by the United Nations, mostly in the context of its international conferences on financing for development. Although the views of the United Nations on debt are not widely known, they are highly relevant in the post-COVID-19 context, as inflationary pressures could lead to tightened global financial conditions and exacerbate debt vulnerabilities in developing countries. The present paper provides an overview of sovereign debt restructurings from the 1980s, a summary of the debt situation of Asia and the Pacific as a case study and a review of the views of United Nations on debt issues. It also offers suggestions to improve the global debt architecture based on such views by highlighting the importance of linking debt sustainability with sustainable development in debt restructuring workouts and through a hub-and-spoke institutional arrangement to disseminate prudential debt management practices and promote transparency.

The present paper contains a discussion on how central banks and financial supervisory authorities can foster green development in Asia and the Pacific. It is based on the argument that while fiscal policy has received much attention, central banks and financial supervisory authorities can certainly play a complementary role in accelerating the transition towards low-carbon, climate-resilient economies. Indeed, these institutions are obliged to act as inaction could compromise their mandate to maintain economic and price stability given that climate change poses an emerging risk to the financial system. The first point made in the paper is that approximately half of the Asia-Pacific central banks either have sustainability-oriented mandates or have begun to integrate climate issues into their policy conduct. The following discussion points out that while the region remains at the early stage of implementing green monetary and financial policies, some central banks and financial supervisory authorities are at the forefront in deploying monetary policy tools, prudential measures and broader initiatives to support green finance. To further promote green central banking, having clear guiding principles, effective communication and adequate technical capacity to customize the green approach is critical. Moving forward, these institutions should be mindful of possible unintended, adverse impacts of sustainable central banking, such as interfering with market neutrality, supporting green washing and crowding out green private investments.

For a central bank to be successful in regulating the financial sector, it must have relevant and pragmatic policies. It should ensure that all financial institutions, including banks, comply with prudential and management norms. Both internal and external factors are making it difficult for Bangladesh Bank to monitor and regulate the financial sector, especially banks. Bangladesh Bank has to move away from its present conventional stance towards a heterogeneous, unconventional and implementable approach. It must strike a balance showing an appropriate professional stance while avoiding the negativity of politically motivated reforms in a highly technical domain.

Central bank digital currency (CBDC) has gained much attention among central banks, as it could potentially improve efficiency, inclusion and innovation in the financial system. The present paper contains a review of the CBDC journey of the Bank of Thailand (BOT), from the guiding principles, to test results of the CBDC prototypes and challenges going forward. It provides insights with regard to the introduction of CBDC into the economy, as well as how a public institution such as a central bank can go about exploring cutting-edge technologies for use in public policy.

For decades the Asia-Pacific region has been driving global economic growth despite occasional setbacks, such as the collapse of economies in Central Asia immediately following the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis. Most of the countries in the region have also done well in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In fact, the attainment of the single most critical MDG – halving the global poverty rate – was due to rapid declines in extreme poverty in the region.

Governments that aim to adjust their fiscal policies to reduce inequality can look to several analytical tools that are being produced in Asia-Pacific countries, including commitment to equity studies and public expenditure reviews. The present paper contains a review of studies for 12 Asia-Pacific countries. Consistent with previous research on the impact of fiscal policies on inequality, the findings of the review show that policies such as targeted direct transfers, education spending and tax policies that favour direct instead of indirect taxes are most effective at inequality reduction.

Professor Clement Allan Tisdell was a distinguished academic and an unrelenting prodigious researcher. Above all, he was a friend and a wonderful human being. He died on 14 July 2022 at the age of 82. Born on 18 November 1939 near the New South Wales country town of Taree in Australia, Tisdell was the oldest of ten children (five boys and five girls) in a highly cohesive and supportive family. He had a very humble upbringing during which he attained an intimate familiarity with rural life, the countryside and nature, and a strong sense of belonging to the local community (Lodewijks, 2007), which continued to the very end of his life. No accolade could distract him from this path of simplicity and common sense.

For many infectious diseases with a high burden in the Asia-Pacific region, there are no licensed, highly effective vaccines. In addition, for neglected infectious diseases in the region, the existing vaccines have limitations. One reason behind the lack of vaccines is a financing gap, especially for late-stage trials. We estimate that the annual financing gap for vaccine research and development (R&D) for neglected diseases is approximately $2 billion and the annual gap for vaccine R&D for emerging infectious diseases is approximately $50 million-170 million. In this paper, a variety of possible mechanisms to mobilize financing for vaccine R&D in the region are presented.

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated an unprecedented call for global solidarity, which has included a proposal to waive key obligations under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. The governance of intellectual property in a global health crisis entails consideration of the effective and coordinated agency of domestic governments to foster solidarity through practical action. This paper presents the context for solidarity while taking in consideration its practical operation by focusing on the mechanism of interaction between the intellectual property system and access to medicines, historically and during the pandemic: authorization of the use of patented subject matter without right holders' consent.

The integration of ASEAN into the global, and especially regional, supply chains has been a major driver of economic growth, job creation and industrialization in the region. Given the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe, restoring supply chain connectivity and its resilience is of paramount importance to the Association. Apart from being agile, responsive and adaptive in this evolving environment, the strengthening of internal coordination to keep markets open and active engagement, in the spirit of open regionalism and multilateralism, with external partners is critical to ensure supply chains connectivity and resilience in the region.

The economic and health recovery of countries in the Asia-Pacific region from the pandemic is hinged on the rapid and equitable deployment of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. However, in the initial years of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, highly unequal distribution of vaccines occurred across and within countries. Even though tight global supply was indeed an issue, health system challenges, particularly in terms of financing, service delivery, human resources, regulatory capacity and governance, played an important role in the inequitable deployment of vaccines. Recommendations given in this paper revolve around the importance of strengthening the health system to enable the equitable allocation and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

This study contains an analysis on trade and trade barriers related to vaccines and vaccine inputs in the Asia-Pacific region. The results indicate that that there was significant intraregional trade in vaccine inputs during the period 2000–2020. While vaccines remained duty free or at low tariffs in many countries within this region, several non-tariff measures from the pre-COVID-19 period still continued. The secondary data research is supplemented with the findings from a survey of stakeholders concerned with vaccine production and trade in India. The following are recommendations based on the study: diversification of import sources of vaccines and vaccine inputs; lowering of tariffs; reduction in export restrictions; and the use of trade agreements to ease trade restrictions.

I am pleased to present the first issue of the Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Journal (APSDJ, vol. 30, No.1) for 2023. The issue comes out at a critical juncture when the region is confronted with the challenges of changed global circumstances while still recovering from the devastations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic amid ongoing climate change-induced existential threats.