Bangkok--23 Dec--ESCAP
Asia and the Pacific remains the region with thehighest number of natural disasters, according to the Statistical Yearbookfor Asia and the Pacific 2014. During the period between 1994 and 2013,over 40% of the world’s reported natural disasters occurred in the region.
Published by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia andthe Pacific (ESCAP), the annual statistics publication reports thatdisaster-induced deaths in the Asia-Pacific region rose more thanthree-fold between 1994-2003 and 2004-2013, largely due to a handful ofextreme disasters.
Some 28 upper-middle-income and high-income economies accounted for 85.5%of the total economic damage from natural disasters between 2004 and 2013.However, in terms of GDP, low-income economies suffered more from naturaldisasters.
Among the Asia-Pacific subregions, South-East Asia, predominantly Indonesiaand the Philippines, was hardest hit by natural disasters with the totalreport of 527 incidences and 354,293 deaths between 2004 and 2013. Duringthe same period, the number of natural disasters occurring in China alone(285 incidences) was more than twice as high as that in the whole North andCentral Asia (116 incidences), part of the largest subregion in Asia andthe Pacific in terms of the total area covered.
The Statistical Yearbook also noted that the region continues to drive theglobal economic recovery, but its growth rate still remains below itspre-crisis level — that is to say, 3.9% during the period between 2008 and2012, compared with 5.2% during the period between 2001 and 2007. And notall are benefiting from economic growth.
Although one billion people escaped extreme poverty since 1990 in Asia andthe Pacific and the prevalence of undernourishment has also decreased from22% to 13%, over 700 million people in the region still remain in extremepoverty, and Asia and the Pacific accounts for more than 60% of the world’shungry people. 933 million people are living on between $1.25 and $2 a day,making them economically insecure or vulnerable to poverty. A small shockto their lives due to such factors as personal mishaps or economic crisescould push these people into abject poverty (below the $1.25-a-day line).Inequality has also risen in nearly half the countries in the region forwhich data are available.
Speaking at the launch, ESCAP Deputy Executive Secretary, Mr. Shun-ichiMurata highlighted the bigger picture for data and statistics in thepost-2015 sustainable development agenda.
“The proposed 17 goals with 169 targets of the framework cover a broadrange of goals and targets of sustainable development, raising demands fordata for the purpose of monitoring,” he said. “At the same time, there hasbeen an emphasis on the importance of establishing a rigorous monitoringand accountability system. In that context, statistics will be of criticalimportance to support accountability and monitoring of the SDGs.”
The publication is available at: http://www.unescap.org/stat/data/