Download this Plan report that captures the issues and breath of interventions needed to fight child poverty in Asia over the next 10 years.

Special Report: Growing Up in Asia (4.8Mb)

Despite Asia's booming economy 600 million children - almost half the region's 1.25 billion under-18s - are severely deprived of basic needs such as food, healthcare and shelter (compared with 265 million in sub-Saharan Africa). And over 350 million Asian children live in absolute poverty* according to a new report by the international children's agency Plan.

The 55-page report, Growing up in Asia, says that half of Asia.s families are failing to benefit from economic growth and globalisation. This is largely due to a combination of the pressure of population growth on scarce resources; lack of access to education, healthcare, clean water and sanitation; caste discrimination and dominance by social elites; as well as weak governance and corruption.

"Despite the focus on poverty in Africa at last month.s G8 summit, Asia has more than twice as many severely deprived children as sub-Saharan Africa. If it is not addressed now, this scale of child poverty will have a serious impact on Asia.s future prospects," says Ian Wishart, National Executive Director of Plan Australia.

Plan says that investing in children and their families is the most effective and cost-efficient way of breaking the cycle of poverty. The organisation pledges to invest US$1 billion on poverty reduction across twelve Asian countries over the next decade, but says the real challenge will be getting governments to face up to the levels of poverty.

Plan.s programs will include:

• Improving household economic security: Plan will aim to expand financial services such as loans and savings. This will enable poor families to increase their incomes, build assets, manage risks and reduce vulnerability to financial crises.
• Child health: Plan will combat causes of child mortality, such as malnutrition and malaria, by promoting cost-effective interventions on child health, school health and nutrition, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, and safe motherhood.
• Education: Plan will aim for parity in girls' education by making schools more accessible and hospitable for girls, as well as encouraging parents to see the advantages of educating their daughters.

Mr Wishart adds "Children are among the most vulnerable members of society and are the most affected by poverty. It is often wrongly assumed that what is best for adults is also best for children, or that adults will always act in the best interests of children."

The report highlights the need to transform attitudes to children and for society to change the way it treats the under-18s. It goes on to outline Plan.s child centred community development approach. This approach puts children, families and communities in leading roles in their own development and involves:

• children taking part in decisions that affect them
• community members developing their skills
• collaborating with groups who share the same goals
• working to change people's attitudes and behaviour
• persuading governments to apply more child-friendly policies

The report says that to truly combat poverty the international community would have to reduce the subsidies given to US, European and Japanese farmers and forgive billions of dollars in debt. It also says that richer countries could make a difference by paying more for the goods they buy from developing countries. And they should not allow concerns about international security and terrorism to override insistence on good governance in developing countries.

However, it asserts that foreign development assistance, while playing an important role, remains very small compared to national income. And there is justified concern that debt forgiveness without improvements in governance will not lead to increased public spending health, education and income security for the poor.

The report says Asian governments could do more to combat poverty by decentralising more of their public spending to the local level. (In South Asia local government gets less than ten per cent of total revenue despite playing a dominant role in public service provision.) It adds that democracy and grass-roots political movements have a crucial role to play in ensuring that governments do not neglect the poor.

*Absolute poverty was defined by the 1995 World Summit on Social Development as ..a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.. Severe deprivation is defined: 'experiencing one or more deprivations of basic human need'.

Plan has been working with children and communities in Asia since 1948. Its program work extends across Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.

Find out more about Plan's work in Asia.