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China, India and Vietnam have achieved impressive results in poverty reduction and there are numerous reasons for this achievement. All three countries have achieved rapid economic growth, and the implementation of so-called track I reforms have been vital for poverty reduction. China and Vietnam have nonetheless managed to reduce poverty more rapidly than India. Legacies of socialist-oriented educational and health policies appear to have played an
important role here, but also China and Vietnam’s orientation towards agricultural modernisation and agriculture-led growth has been crucial for improving rural livelihoods.
While poverty reduction has indeed been impressive, all three countries continue to face considerable developmental challenges. We identified and discussed at least two overarching frontiers of research and policymaking on poverty in emerging Asia. The first relates to the fact that rapid economic growth witnessed in China, India and Vietnam has been achieved at the cost of significant environmental consequences. Urban air pollution and rural water and soil
pollution are only some of the major challenges emerging Asia is currently facing.
While such challenges pose a major threat to continued economic progress, they are most importantly a direct threat to the health and livelihoods of the poor, both in urban and rural areas. Thus all three countries must ensure that policies aimed at promoting economic welfare are not undertaken at the cost of the environment.
The impact of climate change is already becoming visible in all three countries, and natural disasters and declining crop yields will pose difficult questions to the political and administrative leadership as they continue to develop economically and struggle to feed their burgeoning populations.
The second frontier of poverty in emerging Asia relates to uneven
development and growing levels of inequality. The differences between the urban and rural poor and the middle and upper classes in all three countries are stark reminders of the challenges ahead. The nature of politics and public policies often determine how successfully economic growth can improve the wellbeing of the poor. Attempts to accelerate economic development and reduce poverty are
fundamentally political issues which often run into political obstacles, and it will be interesting to follow how India, China and Vietnam address growing inequalities
24
within their societies in the near future. More specifically, we have discussed the phenomenon of ‘transitional poverty’, which refers to multi-dimensional poverty produced during the rapid social and economic transformation processes. While this is most visible in China, the phenomenon is also of potential relevance for India and Vietnam. With agriculture diminishing in importance as driver of growth in all three countries, and industries being centred mainly in and around urban areas, there are considerable challenges in ensuring that the rural poor are not left behind. Thus, poverty reduction may prove even harder in the near future than in the immediate past, as the effects of track I reforms may be wearing off which will in turn necessitate anti-poverty policies that place even greater emphasis on issues of redistribution than is currently the case. There is a need for greater attention on the plight of minorities and other vulnerable households in emerging Asia, and combating various forms of discrimination, stigmatisation and marginalisation.
Many minority groups live in areas where economic development has been less visible. Finding ways to reduce the marginalisation of minority groups while also respecting different cultures and lifestyles currently represents the primary challenge for future poverty reduction in all three countries.
Another set of challenges we have discussed in this essay relates to the problem of hunger. While this is particularly challenging for India, many groups in the population in China and Vietnam also suffer from undernutrition, particularly in rural areas. And although democracy ensures that famines and large (and visible) crises are successfully prevented in India, the country remains home to one third of the world’s undernourished children. Furthermore, every third
woman in the country is undernourished, and more than half of Indian women are anaemic. Any country with aspirations of becoming a major world power must make combating hunger a high policy priority.
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28 NOTES
1 Although the terms ‘emerging economy’ or ‘emerging country’ are ill-defined concepts, they are frequently used as umbrella terms for countries experiencing rapid growth and integration in the global economy (see Hansen and Wethal 2015a&b). Many of these countries are also playing increasingly important roles in international politics. There are, however, disagreements on whether the ‘emerging’ tag is appropriate (as some consider India, China and Brazil to have already
‘emerged’) and whether it makes sense to group countries using arbitrary criteria when they do not appear to have much in common other than rapid economic growth rates.
2 See: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-2-human-development-index-trends-1980-2013
3The only goals that the country has not achieved as of July 2015 relate to Target 7B: ‘Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss’ and Target 7D:
‘Achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement in the living conditions of around 100 million slum dwellers’ (MFA/UN, 2015 pp. 9-10).
4 See: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-quality/en/
5 ‘Full text of PM's speech at the release of the HUNGaMA Report’, NDTV, 10 January 2012, http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/full-text-of-pm-s-speech-at-the-release-of-the-hungama-report-165450 (Accessed: 26 March 2015).
6 See: http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/archive/01404/National_Food_Secu_1404268a.pdf (Accessed: 26 March 2015).
7 Although there are significant varieties in poverty among ethnic minority groups (see Baulch et al.
2007).
8 Baulch et al. (2007) indeed find that the minority groups that have assimilated most with the Kinh society are the ones that have improved living standards the most.