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Asia faces four challenges

Malaysian PM outlines those at ANN meet

ANN/ The Star, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has outlined four fundamental challenges confronting Asia -- poverty eradication, human development, good governance and regional stability.
Speaking at the Agenda Asia Conference co-organised by the Asia News Network and Konrad Adcriaucr Foundation here yesterday, the prime minister said there should be "comprehensive emancipation" of the people through political, economic and social development. He said Asia has the highest number of relatively affluent nations but it also had a multitude of poor, with an estimated one in every five Asians still suffering from the effects of poverty.
Asia, however, was making great progress if only because countries like India and China, which had the largest number of poor, were making impressive strides in developing their economies, he said.
"Nonetheless much work remains to be done in these and other countries and the challenges are enormous," he said, adding that the burden weighed greatest on countries that were least abletoshoulderit.
Abdullah said many Asian countries had missed out on the industrial revolution and "were seen mainly as suppliers of raw materials and natural resources to furnaces and factories owned by ourcolonial masters."
He said the Asian countries must now ensure that they do not let the information age pass them by.
Information technology and telecommunications, he said, had enabled leaps in productivity never thought possible before and it could be a new source of prosperity for the countries.
He warned that the digital divide could also be a new source of poverty. "It is therefore vital for us to work together and build capacity, so that our poor, the ones who are most in need of a helping hand, will not be further left behind," he said.
Highlighting the second challenge facing Asian countries, Abdullah said any programme to eradicate poverty must involve human development as the most valuable resource of the countries was their people.
He said while it was vital to provide access to good education and high literacy, adequate health services and clean water, Asian countries must
foster a quality education system supplemented by skill training and lifelong learning facilities.
"In every country, education and skills development will be the key to human and economic development. Once we have developed our infrastructure and built the hardware, it is equally important to concentrate on developing the software.
Abdullah also said based on a classification by the United Nations Development Programme which measured a country's achievement in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income, only eight Asian nations were deemed to have "high human development."
As for good governance, he said it involved governments dedicating to the welfare of the people and serving them. This meant efficient and responsive delivery systems, financial prudence, government, business and society free of corruption, transparency and accountability as well as businesses with a healthy social conscience and not solely profitmaking.
He said Asia had much to do in this field as many of the nations were still young as independent entities and still in the early decades of nation-building.
"Asia's agenda should therefore concentrate on developing systems that can deliver the economic and social goods to the people," he said, adding that there was no "cookie cutter" or common mould for every country to use to achieve this.
On the fourth challenge of regional peace and stability, Abdullah noted that parts of Asia and many countries were still vulnerable to ethnic and religious tensions, autonomy and separatist pressures, militancy and terrorism.