Posted by Mariam on
Thu, 05/06/2008
When the South Asia Development Marketplace for innovative ideas to tackle stigma and discrimination relating to HIV/AIDS was launched in November 2007 by the HIV/AIDS Group in the South Asia Region of the World Bank and its partners, civil society groups across South Asia sent in almost a thousand proposals.
People fear HIV/AIDS because of the association with sex, drugs, illness, and death. In South Asia, the epidemic is driven largely by high risk practices – buying and selling sex, injecting drugs, and unprotected sex among men having sex with men. This compounds the fear and stigma around HIV/AIDS, as sex workers, injecting drug users, and men having sex with men are already stigmatized.
Not only in South Asia, but around the globe, efforts to prevent new HIV infections and allowing people with HIV/AIDS to live without the burden of social exclusion are severely hampered by the persistence of stigma. One study in India shows that 36% percent of students, faculty and technical staff of the public health services felt it would be better if HIV-positive individuals killed themselves and believed that infected people deserved their fate; 34% would not associate with people with AIDS; 42% believed that those with HIV should be quarantined; and, 31% favored barring infected students from college classes (Ambati, Ambati & Rao, 1997).
Posted by Praful on
Tue, 04/03/2008
 Four hundred million people--if it were a country, it would be the third largest in the world--rely on the Ganges River and its tributaries for their livelihood. Six thousand rivers provide a perennial source of irrigation and power to one of the world’s most densely populated and poorest areas. The Himalayas, “the water tower of the Ganges,” provide 45 percent of the annual flow. These facts represent the potential payoffs to the populations of Bangladesh, India and Nepal as well as the threat that climate change poses to poor and already vulnerable people of these countries.
Posted by Shanta on
Wed, 13/02/2008
In discussing how to end poverty in South Asia, we often get so caught up in the statistics and policy discussions that we forget that we are talking about the lives of real people. But a magnificent photography exhibit by my colleague Michael Foley displayed in the hall outside my office, serves as a constant reminder of whom we are working for.
Posted by Shanta on
Mon, 04/02/2008
 How is the quest to end poverty in South Asia going? Parts of the subcontinent, such as the Maldives, the Western Province of Sri Lanka or some Indian states have already “eliminated” abject poverty (in the sense of having poverty rates below 10 percent). Other parts of South Asia such as Afghanistan or northern Sri Lanka are so mired in violent and escalating conflict that ending poverty seems a remote dream; providing basic security seems much more important.
The reality is that South Asia is a heterogeneous region. The per capita income of the richest part is ten times that of the poorest part (see Table). Sustained economic growth and increasing globalization is propelling several Indian states, Bhutan, Maldives, and parts of Sri Lanka into middle-income environments.
Posted by Shanta on
Fri, 01/02/2008
Baburam Bhattarai and I are very different. He studied Marxist analysis at Jawarhalal Nehru University; I studied neoclassical economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He founded Nepal’s United People’s Front and went underground during the Maoist rebellion; I taught at Harvard and now work at the World Bank. He has a picture of Che Guevara on his car’s gas cap; mine has the logo of my daughter’s soccer team.
Nevertheless, based on our speeches and writings as well as an afternoon together in Kathmandu recently, we found much common ground. We are both concerned about the high and rising inequality in South Asia in general, and Nepal in particular. We agreed that among the causes of this inequality are: (i) slow growth in agriculture; and (ii) lack of employment growth, especially in manufactured exports. I then pushed the envelope a bit by suggesting that the reasons for both (i) and (ii) were government policies which, although introduced with the best of intentions, are backfiring and hurting the poor. For instance, in Sri Lanka, government policy forces farmers to grow rice, a highly vulnerable and not very profitable crop. And the lack of manufactured-export-led employment growth in South Asia in general is associated with extremely restrictive labor regulations in the subcontinent.
Posted by Shanta on
Mon, 31/12/2007
Posted by Shanta on
Tue, 04/12/2007
Rising out of poverty can be frustratingly slow, as Praful’s post on Bhavnaben describes. But one thing is clear: poor people care deeply about their children’s education (Additional resources here about education in South Asia). Parents in Punjab, Pakistan get together and form private schools, charging $3.00 a month (10 cents a day). A recent story about members of the laundry caste (dhobis) in Mumbai—people who have been washing clothes for generations—described a dhobi couple whose sons are studying computers. All this came home to me during a recent visit to Kathmandu, Nepal. A Nepalese friend took me to Durbar Square at 6:30 in the morning (“Before the tourists get there,” he said). We sipped tea while watching the local people going about their morning errands—buying vegetables, greeting friends, using the communal water source for their ablutions. The woman who made us tea said that she used the money she earned as a tea seller to send her two children to a private boarding school. As evidence, she introduced us to her daughter, who spoke to us in perfect English.
Posted by Shanta on
Wed, 14/11/2007
We received a number of comments on this blog post. Feel free to continue posting your comments and questions for my discussion tomorrow (November 15th) with young people about ending poverty in South Asia. Participants will be from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the United States. You can watch the live discussions here via webcast. What: Let's End Poverty in South Asia - live webcast discussion
When: November 15th, 2007
Time: US:7:00am, Eastern time; GMT:12:00
Posted by Shanta on
Sat, 03/11/2007
At a recent seminar at Ramjas College of Delhi University, a student asked, “What can I do to help end poverty in South Asia?” Questions like this, and the experience of teaching a course on South Asian Development at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute have inspired me to engage more with students on a discussion about ending poverty in South Asia. On November 15th, I will be making a presentation from Bangladesh and students from other countries in the region will be connected via video conference. Anybody else can follow the discussion as it happens on this blog. South Asia can eliminate poverty in a generation. To achieve this goal, we need to accelerate and sustain economic growth, make it more inclusive, strengthen human development and improve governance. A daunting task—but it can be done. This goal is particularly important for young people, since this is the South Asia they will inherit and leave to their children. What do you think? Can young people play a role in making this dream a reality? And what should we be doing differently? I encourage visitors of this blog to post comments and questions before November 15th. We will address them together on that day.
Posted by Shanta on
Fri, 21/09/2007
This has been an exciting week. I didn't expect that the blog would generate so much interest--from all parts of the world. The comments range from people saying that a blog dedicated to end poverty in South Asia is definitely needed to others questioning whether this is just orthodox economic prescriptions to still others wondering whether there is any analysis behind the "homilies" presented in the Sri Lanka post (there is--see my reply). The common thread is that everybody wants to engage in a debate on how to end poverty in the subcontinent. I appreciated people sharing their own experience and knowledge--such as the retired forester from Andhra Pradesh who confirmed that, in his village, the veterinarian also treated humans because the doctor was rarely there. One old friend said, "Your blog is like a conversation with you". Another said I looked good with a bucket of water on my head. Finally, several people sent me suggestions for future blog posts. I particularly like the one from a Maldivian friend who, after pointing out that there was no reference to the Maldives in the blog so far, suggested a post on "How to explain the importance of macroeconomic stability to a politician." Have a good weekend.
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Mariam Claeson
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