EDUCATION IN RURAL ASIA

• Almost two thirds of the world's population lives in Asia. Some 4 billion people are scattered throughout rural areas or crowded into towns and cities on a land area of almost 45 million , roughly 17 per cent of the world’s surface. The region has a highly varied range of climatic and ecological zones. Large areas have been affected by degradation over the past 50 years. Drier areas are particularly vulnerable, and 39 per cent of the region’s population lives in areas prone to drought and desertification.
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• Poverty in Asia is a massive problem. Reducing poverty for huge numbers of poor people there is crucial to achieving the primary Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015. More than two thirds of the world’s poor people live in Asia, and nearly half of them are in Southern Asia.
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• Poverty is basically a rural problem in Asia: In the major countries, 80 to 90 per cent of poor people live in rural areas. While Eastern Asia and South-Eastern Asia have made impressive progress in reducing rural poverty over the past three decades, progress has been limited in Southern Asia. And the tsunami that recently struck the region will be taking a toll for years to come in Indonesia, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
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• Despite wide-ranging diversities in the region, many poor rural people in Asia share a number of economic, demographic and social characteristics, the most common of which is  limited access to land. Poor rural households tend to have larger families, less education and higher underemployment. They also lack basic amenities such as a safe water supply, sanitation and electricity. Their access to credit, equipment and technology is severely limited. Other constraints – including the lack of market information, business and negotiating experience and collective organizations – deprive them of the power to compete on equal terms in the marketplace.