Economic Integration in South Asia

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Confronting Poverty, Deprivation and Inequality: Lessons to be Learnt

South Asia remains the largest bastion of poverty in the world. Four of the eight SAARC countries—Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and the newly admitted member of SAARC, Afghanistan—are included in the list of the world’s 50 least developed countries (LDCs). Presently, India is regarded as the country with the world’s largest number of poor people (about 300 million in 2007) because of the fact that China has been remarkably successful in overcoming mass poverty through the continuing process of spectacular economic development for the last several decades, especially the last three decades (the number of China’s poor have come down to about 130 million by 2007). But, lately, ...