how to reduce poverty in South Asia????

2. Introduction:
World population grew from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6.3 billion in 2003 . By 2025
world's population is expected to exceed 8 billion and India will have the
world's largest population. The income growth and food needs in developing
countries including South Asia are expected to more than double and food
demand could nearly double As a result, environmental conditions in cities
and countryside may deteriorate at a rapid rate long-term economic
development and aggravating the affecting incidence of poverty. The United
Nations (UN) has developed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
including eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring
environmental sustainability and governance2 as two of the main goals in the
Millenium RoadmaP South Asia has 1.4 billion or 22.7 per cent of the world's
population (2003) and 43 percent of the world's poor (The World Bank, 2005;
Mahabub ul Haq Human Development Centre, 2003). Despite its rich bio-
diversity, the per capita availability of natural resources such as land, water,
and forests is fairly limited.

3. Globalization and Its Likely Effects in the South
Asian Region
 During the development process in South Asia, the composition
of agriculture has been changed from labour intensive to capital
intensive and from subsistence agriculture to large scale. The
structure of industrial sector has also changed from inward-
looking or import substitution industrialization (ISI) to
outward-looking or export promotional through new dynamism
in the wake of globalization and regionalization. Globalisation
impacts trade policy; e-commerce; transfer of technology;
protection of bio-diversity and environment and media and
crosscultural issues. Particularly, technological advances in
telecommunication networks or information super highways,
information technology and modern transportation systems
have radically changed production, investment and trading
relations in most economies in South Asia by opening the path
for a globalized world

4.  In this context, the sectoral composition of the South Asian
economies is changing from agriculture to industrial and service
sectors including trade in services, particularly through
harmonized trade agreements (like the Free Trade Agreements
(FTA) between India and Sri Lanka and Pakistan and Sri Lanka).
Further, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC) is moving ahead in line with the South Asian Free-
Trade Area (SAFTA) by opening up opportunities for trade
integration among member countries, which would eventually
promote trade, investment, and technology transfer within the
region. At the same time international policy environment may
also change in the 'globalization3 scenario as international
market integration pick up through removing trade barriers for
encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI).

5. • Wit h these changes in the policy
environment, agriculture, industries and
service sectors in the South Asian region
would quickly integrate. As a result, the
agroenvironmental problems will become
more pervasive. Rapid
deforestation,excessive soil erosion, land
degradation, loss of biological diversity,
• , watershed degradation, pollution
including contamination of water, and
overgrazing will be some of the
common agro-environmental
problems, which may eventually lead
to extreme poverty levels.

6. Macroeconomic Linkages and the Environment
 In most developing countries, macroeconomic policy
environment has been reformed under the structural
adjustment policies (SAP) to create an internationally
competitive environment for agricultural and
industrial products and trade in services. It further
encouraged foreign direct investment (FDI) with new
technologies in line with the globalization and
regionalization processes.

7. Gandhi and McMorran (1996) have clearly identified four
relationships between macroeconomics and the environment.
First
• macroeconomic stability is a minimum and necessary condition for
preserving the environment;
Second
• environmental degradation is generally caused by market, policy and
institutional failures relating to the use of environmental resources;
Third
• macroeconomic policies can have an adverse impact on the environment but
only when market, policy and institutional failures exist, although it is
difficult in advance to judge how serious these impacts would be;

8. Conti………….
fourth
• macroeconomic policies are inefficient
and blunt instruments for mitigating
environmental degradation for which
appropriate complementary
microeconomic and environmental
policies are the most efficient and
direct instruments.

9. Poverty and Environmental Governance:
Interactions
• The 'World Development
Report 1992' noted that
the growing evidence of
the relationship between
reducing poverty and
addressing
environmental goals
points to the need to
undertake poverty and
population programmes
as part of environmental
management efforts
• The 'World Development
Report 1992' noted that
the growing evidence of
the relationship between
reducing poverty and
addressing
environmental goals
points to the need to
undertake poverty and
population programmes
as part of environmental
management efforts
• In any case, there may be
problems in the quality of life of
present and future generations,
if appropriate policy initiatives
are not so designed as to strike a
balance between development
and environment. The key
challenge for sustainable
development is to break the
'cycle' of poverty, population
growth and environmental
degradation. Rapid population
growth leads to rural and urban
unemployment and aggravates
poverty levels.

10. The following four main relationships can be identified
between poverty and environmental governance in the
South Asian region.
1.For poor people,
many
environmental
problems are
problems of
poverty:
2. Poor people
cannot afford to
conserve
resources:
3. Richer people
“demand” more
pollution control
and conserve the
environment
4. Population
growth slows with
increased income
and reduces the
pressure on
environment

11. Poverty Alleviation through Good Environmental
Governance
In the process of poverty alleviation, there is a
possibility to use various determinants of good
environmental governance by creating
opportunities and security for the poor. In
addition, provision of accurate environmental
information for decision making may empower
the people through establishing partnerships
in environmental governance . Finally it will
increase the poor people's income and
consumption level and thereby improve their
health and education prospects.

13. Green Accounting: An Element in Environmental
Governance
The concept of Net National Welfare (NNW), which
incorporated changes in both material consumption
and environmental quality, has been designed to
indicate on a per capita basis whether the welfare of
average citizens was increasing or decreasing through
the 'green accounting' process. In the process of
'greenaccounting', it is tried to modify national
accounts to include environmental damages,
environmental services and changes in stocks of
natural capital as the priority in the environmental
governance (World Bank, 2003). Accordingly, there is
a possibility to define sustainable development in
another way that 'NNW for the great majority of
the population should not fall over time'.

14. Poverty, Environmental Good Governance5 and Political
Economy
Poverty and political economy are closely linked in South Asia. The political and
economic elites with political power and wealth and strong say in decision making have
influenced and exacerbated the poverty levels in South Asia. Smallscale peasants have no
way to break the vicious cycle of poverty. They have no accumulated capital, improved
technology and other skilled manpower to enhance the productivity and income levels.
They are condemned to a hand-to-mouth economy for life without alternatives.

15. Strategic Policy and Operational Options for Poverty
Alleviation and Improving Good Environmental
Governance
Goods and services that sustain human development exist in environment. It is
necessary therefore that human development sustains environment. Better
environmental governance including preservation and management of natural
resources increases the income and nutrition of poor people and thereby reduces
poverty. A robust environmental governance can further reduce the risk of
disasters from floods and droughts. Provision of improved water (for drinking
and domestic use) and sanitation facilities make living healthier for the poor.
Managing and protecting the environment through efficient systems of
environmental governance contributes to achieve other economic and social
development goals. Further, sound policies and programmes for poverty
alleviation which help improvepeople's lives, can also help improve the
environment through 'win-win' solutions.

16.  Implementing Sound Strategic Policy Options
In South Asia, both conceptual and operational shifts are
required to implement strategic pro-poor and pro-
environment policy frameworks to gain 'win-win'
options. Building partnerships with stakeholders is not
a new phenomenon. To maintain sustainable
partnerships, it is necessary to have goodwill,
flexibility to experiment, develop leadership, fine-tune
solutions and build institutions.

17. Conceptual Shifts
 As identified by Ambler (1999), the strategic conceptual shifts
for pro-poor environmental governance are as follows:
1. Empowering the poor as actors in identifying their problems and
seeking their own solutions and not assuming that the poor are
the problem;
2. Engaging poor people as partners not as beneficiaries in the
process, and using people-centered frameworks for planning and
implementation;
3. Building partnerships with private sector organizations through
incentives to mobilize resources for poverty alleviation and
environmental governance instead of relying solely on state
resources;
4. And granting the poor real rights and ownership and not just a
'sense of ownership' of assets (eg. land rights) for further
improvement and investment

18. Operational Shifts
 The following operational shifts are suggested to
reduce poverty and improve the good environmental
governance in South Asia.
 Reforms in Governanc
 Community-Based Actions

19. Creation of Employment Opportunities for the
Poor
 The benefits of projects on watershed protection or nature
reserves, which are public goods in nature, are gained by
partially giving them over to rural poor people. The abilities
are there to create employment opportunities through
privatepublic partnerships for protection of natural
resources in rural areas (eg. Hiring landless or poor persons
as guards in community and national parks, forests and
biodiversity reserves; hiring the poor for protecting and
establishing wild life corridors and for water quality
monitoring). In addition, developing eco-tourism6 projects
with private sector investments to meet the demand of
lovers of nature, heritage and pleasure through
participation of poor communities.

20. Compensation for Poor
 The systems should be developed to encourage users
to preserve environment and natural resources. By way
of giving some incentives as compensation will lead to
encourage users or farmers to preserve resources. For
example, it is necessary to avoid agricultural burning
paddy straw, slash and burn cultivation, to achieve the
targets of national carbon emission or air quality.

21. Market and Planning Reforms
 Pro-Poor Market Reforms
 Elimination of Non-Poor Subsidies
 Pro-Poor Governance
 Pro-Poor Ecosystem Planning

22. Conclusion:
• Continued population growth
presents greater challenges in
South Asia to efforts to
maintain the physical
environment. Environmental
damages are alarmingly high
and increase poverty levels in
most South Asian countries in
line with the new dynamism in
globalization and
regionalization.
• Poverty levels further devastate
native forests, biodiversity, and
genetic resources. The poor
quality of water supply, air
pollution, urban congestion,
noise pollution and solid waste
disposal will be the major
environmental problems in
these countries.
• Poverty alleviation and
environmental governance are
two sides of the same coin.
Without alleviating extreme
poverty, we are not in a position
to improve the environmental
governance, and without having
prudent environmental
governance, it is impossible to
alleviate poverty in the South
Asian region.