RICE FACTS

Fight poverty where it lives

by DAVID DAWE
he most recent World Food Summit, in 1996, set the target of halving by 2015 the number of people who go to bed hungry. Such rapid progress will require poverty reduction worldwide, but especially in Asia. Despite substantial progress in many Asian countries over the past few decades (Figure 1), Asia is still home to most of the worlds poor. The number of poor in rice1 producing Asia is nearly three times that of sub-Saharan Africa, the second largest locus of poverty (Figure 2). To some extent, Asia has more poor people than Africa simply because its population is much larger. Yet some key indicators suggest that the incidence of poverty is worse in large parts of Asia than in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, stunting, wasting and underweight all afflict a larger proportion of children in southcentral Asia (dominated by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) than in sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 3). Illuminating a similar picture of the status of women, the proportion of severely underweight adult women is much higher in Bangladesh and Nepal than in Chad or Madagascar, the two countries in sub-Saharan Africa with the highest prevalence of underweight adult women (Figure 4). It seems that well-publicized progress toward alleviating hunger and poverty in much of Asia has blinded many donors and the public at large to the poverty that remains in the worlds largest continent. Certainly the level of official development assistance (ODA) provided per poor person in riceproducing Asia is much lower than in
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Millions in poverty US$ per poor person sub-Saharan 900 50 Africa (Figure 2). This conclusion 800 holds even 40 excluding from 700 the calculations 600 India and China, 30 who by sheer size 500 arguably threaten 400 to skew the 20 results. Adjusting 300 the figures to take into account 200 10 how a lot of ODA for Africa is in 100 the form of 0 0 grants, while that SSA RPA SSA RPA for Asia is more Fig. 2. Number of people living in poverty and official development assistance per often in the form person in rice-producing Asia (RPA) and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). of loans, shows % sub-Saharan Africa receiving four 50 times as much aid per poor person as does rice-producing Asia. SSA 40 SCA Africa urgently needs donor funds. But, in their zeal to set Africa aright, 30 donors should not forget that both the incidence of poverty and its absolute 20 numbers remain very high in Asia. It 10 will be impossible to achieve broad progress in global poverty alleviation 0 unless Asia receives due attention. Stunting Underweight Wasting

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Millions 300 250 200 150 100 50
1980 1992 1978 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1994 1996

Fig. 3. Percentage of children suffering from stunting, underweight and wasting, year 2000, in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and south-central Asia (SCA).

Number of rural poor in China

% 10 8 6 4 2 0
Madagascar Chad Nepal Bangladesh

0
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Korea (North), Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Fig. 1. Number of rural poor in China, 1978-97.

Fig. 4. Percentage of women (age 2049) who are severely underweight.

Rice Today April 2003

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