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Simple ideas for APEC to leave no one behind
Poverty and extreme inequality are not destiny.
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Beggars in Indonesian capital city Jakarta. In Indonesia, the four richest men have more wealth than the poorest 100 million people. (Shutterstock.com/Daxiao Productions)
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ext week Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders will meet in Danang. They face a region divided as never between a few rich and the rest. After decades of leading the world in economic growth that benefited everyone, Asia today is rapidly becoming a fractured region with sharp economic and social divisions between the rich and the underdogs.
The Danang summit should be a reflective moment for APEC political and business leaders to critically review their policies and growth paradigm which are failing to achieve shared prosperity and just helping a minority to increase their wealth while leaving millions of women, workers and peasants behind.
In Asia-Pacific, the population-weighted income Gini coefficient, based on household income estimates, increased from 0.37 to 0.48 between 1990 and 2014; an increase of almost 30 percent in less than 3 decades. In Indonesia, the four richest men have more wealth than the poorest 100 million people. In Vietnam, 210 of the country’s super rich individuals earn more than enough in one year to lift 3.2 million people out of poverty and end extreme poverty. Similarly, 1 percent of rich people in Thailand own 56 percent of national wealth, and half of the wealth in Indonesia is owned by just 1 percent.
Despite political pronouncements and inclusive growth mantras, why is exactly the opposite happening? There are four major causes. Firstly, the economic growth model pursued in the region is sucking benefits upward from women, workers, fisherfolk, peasants and small producers. Instead of increasing access to land and other productive resources, the growth model has helped a few rich to capture resources.
