Bangkok--25 Mar--UNISBKK
Statistical Yearbook highlights trends in health employment technology development
Recent trends in the Asia-Pacific region documented in a new United Nations report show increases in research and development spending and access to technology, unemployment rates staying low because of employment in the informal sector, and high rates of communicable and non-communicable diseases and smoking.
These findings are contained in the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2009, released today by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The Yearbook is the region’s leading compilation of statistical data and provides a detailed picture of the major economic, social and environmental trends over the past two decades.
“The Yearbook provides readers with a comparison of economic, social and environmental trends in Asia-Pacific and between Asia-Pacific and other regions,” said Noeleen Heyzer, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP.
“There are still millions of people in Asia who work in the informal sector, and stand outside of formal statistics. We must work to improve our ability to gather this information. Without accurate data to develop good policies, these people remain uncounted and unprotected”
According to Dr. Heyzer, the trends documented in the Yearbook show poverty is reducing and the region is catching up with the rest of the world, but they also point out areas in need of improvement, such as health care, education, social protection, sustainable development and providing basic infrastructure and services for all.
Unemployment remains artificially low
Formal unemployment averages around 5 per cent in the Asia Pacific region even during hard economic times where the unemployment level would be expected to rise- according to data compiled up to 2008, the most recent information available. This is because many of the people who would be otherwise unemployed have found work in the informal sector, which can provide little to no social protection or security and does not help create long-term sustainability for development.
Asia-Pacific region spending more on research and development
From 2002 to 2007, Asia and the Pacific increased its overall share of global spending on research and development, more than any other world region, with the main contributor being China.
However, despite the rapid growth in research, the region still has a lower proportion of researchers per population than all other regions except Africa. Thus, it still has a lot to do in terms of training and job creation to catch up with the leading countries.
Another way of accelerating development is to bridge the digital divide by providing access to technology and the Internet. The number of Internet users in the region increased from 160 million in 2001 to 712 million in 2008. However, a number of countries have yet to reach the figure of one person per 100 — as with Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar and Timor-Leste.
Environmental cost of economic development
The cost of high economic growth in Asia and the Pacific is reflected in deforestation, forest degradation and loss of biodiversity. In 2008, Asia and the Pacific had the world’s highest number of threatened species, with almost one-third of all threatened plants, and over one third of all threatened animal species. South-East Asia contains the most countries with species under threat; Malaysia and Indonesia both have over 1,000 threatened species.
Communicable and non-communicable diseases threatening health
In about one-third of Asian and Pacific countries, more than 40 per cent of lives are lost to communicable diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis, measles and cholera. In Afghanistan, the proportion is 77 per cent, while in Tajikistan it is 72 per cent, and in Cambodia, 67 per cent.
At the other end of the scale, in about one-fifth of countries, most lives are lost to non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases — as in China (59 per cent), Russian Federation (62 per cent), Japan (76 per cent), and New Zealand (77 per cent).
One of the common causes of non-communicable diseases in the region is smoking. Average smoking prevalence for females is only around 6 per cent but for males it is much higher — in East and North and South-East Asia well over half of all men smoke and in South and South-West Asia one-third does.
In many countries — such as Georgia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia, Russian Federation, Philippines and Timor-Leste - more than 20 per cent of adolescents aged 13 -15 are smokers. The issue is even more serious in the Pacific — in Papua New Guinea nearly half of those in the same age range smoke followed by, in the Federated States of Micronesia (46 per cent), and in Tuvalu (36 per cent).
The Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2009 uses annual data from the most respected international data sources, both within and outside of the UN system in order to maximize the comparability of indicators across countries and regions as well as over time.
The Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2009 can be found online at: http://www.unescap.org/stat/data/syb2009/
For more information, please contact:
Ms. Haishan Fu
Chief Statistics Division, ESCAP
Tel.: +66-22881653
Email:
[email protected]
Mr. Bentley Jenson
UN Information Services (UNIS), ESCAP
Tel: (66) 2 288 1869
Email:
[email protected] and
[email protected]