Some human problems

The Survey concludes with brief, current reviews of major social problems in developing ESCAP countries. Population pressures are still heavy in most parts of the region, although there has been much recent progress in reducing them, especially by measures of family planning. Health problems, however, are not decreasing, and are strongly related to poverty through widespread malnutrition, and also through lack of access by poor people and rural people to adequate medical care. There is a need to reorganize health services so as to put more emphasis on preventive measures, and so as to make curative measures more widely and readily available in rural areas. Attention has also to be given, in this connection, to measures for arresting deterioration of the physical and the social environment. Although Asian countries have legislation against economic exploitation of children, this continues to be widespread and reprehensible – a dark aspect of industrialization and urbanization. Economic modernization is also damaging the extended family system, which has traditionally cared for old and disabled people, and the old are a rising proportion of the population. Alternative care of the old and disabled will increasingly require provision of appropriate measures of social security. There has been recent progress in reducing socio-economic handicaps traditionally imposed on women, but much remains to be done in this respect. Refugees have become another problem, serious for those directly concerned and an economic burden on the countries which have first to receive them. I f political tensions could be relieved, so would be these problems; for expenditures on defence and armaments might then be diverted to improving socio-economic conditions.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Decent Work and Economic Growth

Reduced Inequalities