High-level policymakers, development experts, and civil society members from across Asia and the world Thursday called for new approaches and actions to reduce poverty and hunger in rural Asia at an international forum held in Manila.
The two-day policy forum was organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute and Asian Development Bank (ADB), with its focus on the theme of "Agricultural and Rural Development for Reducing Poverty and Hunger in Asia: In Pursuit of Inclusive and Sustainable Growth."
Attendants of the forum said that despite unprecedented economic growth and poverty reduction achieved during the past three decades, hunger and poverty still persist across Asia, with an estimated 600 million people in the region living on less than one U.S. dollar a day, and mostly in rural areas.
"Ironically, East Asia's remarkable economic growth, which built upon strong agricultural gains, is now contributing to expanding income inequalities between those living in cities and those in rural areas. This growing gap is not economically or politically sustainable over time. Inclusive growth is a must and inclusive growth requires rural development," said ADB Vice President C. Lawrence Greenwood.
ADB said that by 2015, Asia will still be home to half of the world's poor and best projections indicate that three-quarters of these poor will live in rural areas.
In the decades ahead, agriculture and rural development will play as critical a role as ever in alleviating poverty and hunger throughout Asia, said ADB in a news release focused on the forum.
New strategies will be essential to address emerging challenges and opportunities that face the region.
These challenges include the rapidly changing global food markets for high-value foods and the potential offered by bio-fuel production, as well as growing importance of non-farm activities as a source of income for the rural poor, said ADB.
Source: Xinhua
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