2007年10月9日 “亚洲经济增长未解决饥饿问题”

The Asia-Pacific region’s rapid economic growth has helped cut extreme income poverty but has had less of an impact on addressing widespread hunger and infant mortality, according to a new report.

亚洲开发银行(ADB)和联合国(UN)机构昨日联合发布的报告显示，未来8年，亚太地区多数国家有望将贫困减少一半，实现全民教育以及教育方面的男女平等。

Most countries in the region are on track to reduce poverty by half, attain universal education and achieve gender parity in education in the next eight years, according to the report released yesterday by the Asian Development Bank and UN agencies.

亚太地区的贫困率为约17%，尽管这一数字高于拉美和加勒比地区，但由于经济的快速增长，亚太国家在消除极度贫困方面取得了更大进展。报告称：“按照每天1美元的标准，整个亚太地区有望实现这一目标，部分原因是许多国家快速的经济增长，尤其是在近年的中国。”

Although the region’s poverty rate of about 17 per cent is higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific countries are making much faster progress in eliminating extreme poverty thanks to rapid economic growth. “Based on the $1-a-day measure, the region as a whole is on track, due in part to rapid economic growth in many countries, most recently in China,” it said.

然而该报告还指出，在解决儿童死亡率和营养不良、改善母亲健康状况以及提供安全饮用水和卫生条件方面，亚太地区进展非常缓慢。

But the report also noted that the region was making very slow progress in addressing child mortality and nutrition, improving maternal health and providing safe drinking water and sanitation.

因此，除非获得外部帮助，否则亚太地区最不发达国家可能无法实现联合国的2015年千年发展目标(MDG)。

As a result the region’s least developed countries are likely to miss the United Nations’ millennium development goals for 2015 unless they get external help.

报告作者宣称，减少饥饿“是该地区最大的失败之一”，在5岁以下的儿童中，有28%体重不足。

Reducing hunger “is one of the region’s greatest failures” with 28 per cent ofunder-fives underweight, the authors of the report declared.

亚洲开发银行贫困部门主管施拉迪提亚?贾德吉(Shiladitya Chatterjee)表示，亚太地区在减少贫困方面取得了快速进展，但在解决饥饿、儿童死亡率以及其它社会目标方面步伐缓慢，造成这种差异的部分原因可能在于基础服务领域公共投资不足。

Shiladitya Chatterjee, head of the ADB’s poverty unit, said the disparity between rapid progress in poverty reduction and the slow pace in addressing hunger, infant mortality and other social goals could be partly explained by a lack of public investments in basic services.

他表示：“尽管由于经济增长迅速，亚洲如今拥有更多的资源，但尚未按照应有的程度将这些资源转化为有效的计划，以提高教育水平和改善医疗状况。”

He said: “While Asia now has more resources because of rapid growth, the translation of those resources into effective programmes to raise standards in education and health care access is not taking place as much as it should.”