The regional context and UNDP response

The Asia-Pacific is the largest and most diverse region in the world, comprising more than half of the global population. It has the most populous continental countries on the one hand and small Pacific island countries on the other. The region exhibits enormous social, economic, political, cultural and geographical diversity that manifests in diverse development challenges. The human development challenges are also very diverse. The region houses nearly two-thirds of the world’s poor. At the same time, the region contains the fastest-growing economies of the past few decades. Reducing poverty has turned out to be a huge challenge for many countries because of a variety of factors such as implicit and explicit social class structure, imbalance in economic growth within a country, persistent corruption, and conflicts of varying nature and scales. There are countries that are highly dependent on foreign assistance and those which are not. Gender inequality is highly entrenched in many countries but for different reasons and contexts, and manifests in a variety of ways. With the rapid economic growth, environment degradation has become a huge issue for many countries, while finding a sustainable energy supply to the populace and industry became a difficult pursuit. Reference Table A1 provides selected data on human development, poverty, gender equality, environmental performance and aid dependency, depicting the diversity of the countries in the region.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development