Poverty in South Asia

In this paper, an attempt is made to document and analyse the poverty situation in South Asia. Available data on poverty levels and trends are discussed in the first section. Major focus of the paper is to examine the progress made during the decade of 1990s. During this decade, it may be noted that all the countries of the region were implementing some variant of structural adjustment and stabilisation programme. Performance of the national economies discussed briefly in the second section of the paper provides some clues regarding the possible effects of the reforms on poverty reduction. The safety-networks and targeting issues to improve their cost effectiveness are discussed in the final section.